A Partnership Forged in Mutual Vitriol
by Chromaticism
Summary: A collection of one-shots exploring Harry/Blaise (obviously AU). Some will be explicit, some will be gen.
1. bound by words forever unsaid

**AN:** Gifted to i_claudia on AO3. I don't know if you're still active in fanfic, but your depiction of Harry/Blaise was the one that resonated with me the most. Thank you.

Rating: T

AU Deathly Hallows

Summary: Having just escaped Nagini with Harry's wand in pieces, a break seems all too welcome for Harry and Hermione.

* * *

"I'll be fine, Hermione," Harry said.

The assured half-smile he attempted felt laughably transparent.

"Really," he confirmed, failing to convince even himself.

Hermione huffed.

"You're lying, but I understand. I'd feel the same."

Harry continued his idle rifling through the photo album Hagrid made for him, still unable to make eye contact with Hermione. Still bitter.

"I just want a break, you know? We need a break," Hermione ground out.

She was pacing now, still maintaining distance between them even with her lengthy strides. He wanted a break as well. Anything to forget the broken wand not even an arms-length away.

It came to him in a rush of breath.

"I think I have an idea, Hermione," he said.

"You do?"

The relief in her voice was almost joyous. She reached for him before thinking better of it, standing before him with an impatient stare.

"Did you put a pair of mismatched socks with Snitches on them in your bag when we packed?" Harry asked.

"I think so. Why?"

Harry smiled for the first time since their escape from Nagini.

"There's a letter in one of them which I shrank. Pass it to me."

While Hermione searched her bag, Harry idly remembered how he'd received it.

Blaise approached him with the quiet rustling of well-tailored robes. He was still in the black robes he'd worn to Dumbledore's funeral, though by his clear eyes, neutral expression, you'd never think he'd attended. A stab of violent hate went through Harry, irrational, and a hate that he hadn't felt since Snape had escaped on the grounds, but Dumbledore deserved even the smallest crack in Blaise's seemingly impenetrable demeanour.

The silence was long, broken only by the murmurs of Hagrid, McGonagall, Flitwick, Slughorn and two other Professors he didn't recognise methodically banishing the seating away.

"Look, Potter," Blaise said, a strange tightness to his face, "I understand things will be… difficult for you in the future."

It was an incredibly trite statement and Harry snorted, continuing his vigil over the Black Lake. The heat of Ginny sidled up to him, greatly diminished at this point, seemed to be fixated in every iota of his being, despite her absence. Her pretty red hair, easy smiles and explosive personality were remnants of days when Voldemort wasn't the only thing in his future. He'd thrown that away, all too quickly. Maybe if he'd been as quick to fight off Dumbledore's body-bind and throw an expelliarmus at Malfoy and Snape too.

Harry's fists unconsciously clenched.

Maybe something more permanent. If he'd been stronger, maybe Ginny would still be beside him talking about going to Hogsmeade together, teasing Ron and letting him count her freckles between kisses. If he'd just done more, Dumbledore would still be alive.

Blaise was a constant in this newly formed world of misery, even if his form of constancy was unwelcome. A sigh sounded somewhere to his right, where Blaise was hovering, acting as if the affairs of regular people, Dumbledore's death, murder, was beneath his concerns.

"I'll leave you to mourn, but if you need somewhere to go…" Blaise trailed off.

"We're friends, right?"

Harry almost choked. Now was not the time for whatever insecurities Blaise had hidden for the years he'd known him.

"Is it really the time for a demonstration of your lack of social skills or tact, Blaise?"

He regretted snapping before he'd even finished his sentence. Of all the people Harry knew, Blaise was one of the few people who seemed to get some sort of thrill out of making him angry.

"Yes or no is fine, Potter. No need to insult me," he positively purred.

Harry knew if he made eye contact right now, Blaise would have a giant smirk on his face. His vision became full focused on the lazy ripples of the Giant Squid moving beneath the surface of the lake.

"If I say yes, will you shove off?"

"Well, I don't want your answer out of duress, but – "

Harry's head sunk into his hands. Positioned like this, he couldn't smell Ginny anymore which sent a sharp jolt through him. It wasn't as unwelcome as he thought it would be.

That realisation scared him.

"Yes! Merlin's beard… you think I'd put up with you if we weren't?"

There was no doubting the pleasure in Blaise's ensuing hum, though Harry wasn't entirely sure whether it was at riling Harry up, one of Blaise's favourite pastimes, or this clear confirmation of their friendship. With Dumbledore dead and Voldemort looming on the horizon, it was hard to give a damn about Blaise's potential insecurities.

Blaise finally entered his field of view, blocking his view of a tentacle breaking through the water of the lake. He was effortlessly handsome as usual. In his hands was a thin, brown envelope; expensive and artisan crafted, by the looks of it at least.

"Just take this envelope. Open it if you have nowhere to go."

Harry took it, an eyebrow raised in question. He could feel the impressions of a fiery magic in the embossed seal. Blaise just gave him a stiff, almost uncertain nod. Something flickered in his dark, almond eyes as if he had something more to say, something important, but he turned on his heel, walking off, soundless and fast.

"Look after yourself, Potter," he called over his shoulder.

Blaise sounded oddly disappointed, Harry noted somewhere in the back of his mind.

Harry applied a quick Shrinking Charm, hurriedly shoved the envelope in his pocket and quickly forgot about it. Later, he'd dump it in one of the socks in a pair Dobby had given him back in his fourth year.

Harry jolted out of his recollection with the gentle pat of the envelope falling in his lap. He opened it quickly, almost missing the sight of Hermione's wand out.

She must have been levitating it.

"It burnt my hands when I touched it," she explained in response to his cagey expression.

"Oh. Sorry," he said.

Harry should have known better. Blaise seemed like the type to curse his correspondence when handled by others. What else could that impression of fire he'd gotten when handling it be?

"The person who gave it to me is… a little paranoid," Harry said.

Hermione nodded, still wary of his mood. He opened it hastily.

At last resort, come to:

26C Southern Street

Kings Cross,

London

N1 9RH

A photograph of a busy street fell out of the envelope, a riot of cars and people moving in and out of frame in dull sepia. Looking carefully, he could make out 26 Southern Street, a pale stone building with two, no three, buttons for each flat next to the door.

"I don't recognise this handwriting," Hermione said pointedly, looking over his shoulder.

"I do, and I'll repeat that I trust the person who gave this to me," Harry replied.

Hermione sat beside him on his bed, eyebrows furrowed, and lips pinched. Her curious, severe look only served to bring the bruises on her face from their fight with Nagini into stark relief.

"Why are you so insistent on going to this place?"

"It's Christmas," he said as if it explained everything.

"Merry Christmas," she said hesitantly, running her fingers through her tangled hair.

"Merry Christmas, Hermione," he said in reply.

The smile that came to his face was more genuine than any he'd managed to muster in what felt like weeks.

"Trust me," he implored. "I'll pack… if you're up for it."

He knew he'd won when Hermione exited the tent, leaving the bag at his side. The murmur of her systematically removing their wards filled the quiet night air.

Harry's hands wrung through his hair, frustrated and all too aware of the phantom pain of the Horcrux stuck to his heated flesh.

Perhaps this was her form of penance. Her easy acquiescence to go to an unknown place after the danger they were just in was alarming by Hermione's standards. Harry wanted to tell her again how much he owed her, but he was still bitter about his wand, broken into pieces in the wake of her heroism. Would he not be dead beneath Voldemort's wand without her timely arrival? He would be. But still, it was easy to steel himself and gather their stuff into Hermione's bag, still nurturing that seed of resentment.

When everything was packed, Hermione simply took his hand in her own. Harry turned to face her, taking in her bruised complexion after their struggle with Nagini, the world weariness in her face, her chaotic hair, and knew that there was no-one else he'd want to struggle against Voldemort with. She was his sister in all but blood. The pang in his heart that he knew was the absence of Ron, his best mate, was something he barely managed to ignore. He gave her an affectionate squeeze. She didn't smile or make eye contact like she might have months ago, or bear hugged him if he'd caught her at a good time, but she weakly squeezed back. It was enough. He crouched with her, draping his cloak over them as he did so.

They disapparated with a crack, landing on the doorstep depicted in the photo with a quiet pop.

"Pretty upscale area," Hermione said with a sniff. "Right next to King's Cross Station."

Harry hoped that this didn't backfire on them as he pressed the buzzer.

It was a long wait with neither of them daring to speak into the intercom.

The door opened silently, and a wand held tightly in a dark-skinned hand his first sight of the occupant. Blaise appeared before them, eyes flinty with resolve. The other hand was smoothing the wrinkles in the thin white shirt he must have hastily put on as he came to the door.

Harry snorted. Even with possible Death Eaters at his door, Blaise's first preoccupation was making sure his clothes were unwrinkled.

"Take off the cloak, Potter. I'd know that snort anywhere."

He and Hermione emerged into the gentle snowfall, a shiver wracking Harry's form. Hermione was staring at their prospective host, an eyebrow climbing steadily higher into her hair. Blaise was ordinarily lean, but there was a skinniness to his tall frame now, none of the whipcord athleticism he'd previously had. It was sobering of the reality of living in hiding. He wondered what Blaise made of the difference in them.

"Well... wasn't expecting to see you. Either of you. Hoping actually," Blaise murmured, already stepping back to let them through the narrow corridor into his flat.

A lazy smirk crossed Blaise's lips as Harry half-jogged past the threshold into the wonderful warmth.

"It's two in the morning, Potter. I hope it's a coincidence you came here for Christmas," he called as Harry stood before him.

Hermione traipsed past the doorway after him, closing the door behind her.

"Granger," Blaise acknowledged with a questioning arch of his eyebrow.

"Zabini."

The only sign that Blaise had been sleeping when they'd knocked on his door was the frequency with which he kept rubbing at his eyes. Otherwise, he seemed perfectly alert.

They ended up in his kitchen, sat at a small wooden table with the loud whistle of a kettle breaking the silence. Hermione, at his left, was unbearably silent. He didn't know whether to chalk it up to the presence of the horcrux under her knitted Weasley jumper, and that brought a forlorn half-smile to Harry's face, or just the lack of comfort that came with being in such unfamiliar territory. Both, likely. She'd known about his strange friendship with Blaise, but it still must have been strange to have been invited to his home. Blaise amongst their year was largely an unknown quality.

"I only have tea, I'm afraid," Blaise said. He rummaged through some overhead cabinets. "Milk? Cream? Sugar?"

"Yes, yes and one teaspoon for me," Hermione said.

"Just milk for me, Blaise," Harry said.

He idly toyed with the beads on Hermione's miracle bag while their host made their tea in silence.

After handing them their tea and nodding absently at their thanks, Blaise took a seat across from them with a significant gaze in his dark eyes. In the bright lighting of the kitchen, he looked almost as bad as they did. He wasn't approaching sallow-skinned in the way that Harry or Hermione were, considering his dark skin, but he seemed rather pale. His cheekbones, normally sharp on his features, were positively dagger-like and the bags under his eyes were like deep trenches. He looked like one of the delinquents Petunia had always been telling Dudley to avoid (and failing), though Harry could never imagine Blaise getting drunk, never mind being addicted to drugs.

"Weasley's still alive?"

Blaise took a sip of his tea, wincing slightly before his features smoothed over. Harry winced sympathetically; Petunia had always insisted that he take his tea without cream or sugar, claiming he didn't deserve it.

"Of course. He's still alive," Hermione muttered.

Harry sighed, cursing Blaise's uncanny ability to start a conversation on the wrong note. He was fairly sure it was intentional as well.

"Ron isn't with us," Harry said, giving Hermione's shoulder a gentle squeeze in solidarity.

Harry knew Blaise well enough to know that he'd be able to read enough out of that gesture to make the appropriate conclusion. A part of him feared that Blaise would needle at that admission, but he just shrugged in that way he was fond of when dealing with a situation where malicious sarcasm was inappropriate.

"Well, you both look half-starved," Blaise drawled. "Not that I look much better even with food."

Harry had to press his hand firmly against Hermione's thigh to stop her from responding to that. He knew that she felt guilty about their food situation since Ron had left.

"There's pasta salad in the fridge. It's... edible," Blaise said, stressing the word edible as if he wasn't sure himself.

Part of Harry's stomach sunk at the idea of more poorly prepared food, but the significant part of it, the unbearably hungry part, was the part that seemed to have control over his mouth now.

"Yes please."

Harry was sure that at this point Hagrid's rock cakes would go down as a culinary revelation between the two of them, yet he braced himself regardless. Just like a Wronski feint he thought to himself as Blaise quickly dished their portions into two bowls.

They ate in silence. Privately, Harry was in awe of how good it was.

"It was very good," Hermione said when they'd finished, not even ten minutes later.

"Thank you. My nonna taught me how to make it," he murmured graciously.

A brief smile crossed his face, transforming it incredibly. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

"Is she…?"

Blaise winced slightly at the direction of Hermione's questioning.

"Yes, she's a Muggle."

He took on the air of someone explaining something obvious, eyes piercing as if daring the two of them to doubt what he was about to say.

"Family is especially important for Italians. Mamma would probably skin me alive if I spurned any of them because they didn't have magic."

It was such a clumsy excuse that it only served to further humanise him. It made him seem less Slytherin, clearly, going by Hermione's soft expression.

"You're better than I expected, Zabini. You're alright, I guess," Hermione offered.

Blaise just lifted an eyebrow that in any other situation would look aristocratic, but here it just looked petulant.

"Alright?"

It was incredibly unclear whether Blaise was repeating Hermione or awkwardly accepting the compliment. Harry dug his teeth into his fist, shaking with mirth.

"I mean, when you learn how to decipher all your quirks, you seem to be a decent person."

She circled the rim of her mug, eyes staring into the distance in thought.

"A bit erratic though."

Harry gestured at his empty plate, a laugh bursting out of him at Blaise's horrified expression. The deer-in-the-headlights look of his face and the slight aghast parting of his lips made it seem as if Hermione had declared her intent to elope with him. Part of her jacket covered her mouth as she visibly fought the urge to laugh.

"Not bad for a Slytherin pureblood," Harry added. "The food, and you."

Hermione sat a bit to attention as if she wished to ask something but seemed to think better of it, sinking languidly back into her chair. Blaise's eyes shifted his glare from Hermione towards Harry, a fraction softer.

"I think that's the kindest thing you've ever said to me, Potter," Blaise said.

It seemed he'd recovered a sense of equilibrium as he gave the two of them a scathing glare. With how defensive his current posture was, arms crossed and leaning back into his chair, it was comical.

"Well, I imagine a pureblood, such as yourself, would have tried to cook something like this in a cauldron," Harry drawled, finding it easy to slip into their usual routine of playful snipes.

"I'm not Goyle, Potter."

"Besides, what would you know about cauldrons? I've seen the disasters you produced before Slughorn appeared. Not quite Longbottom, but horrific is a word I'd use. Has he been feeding you Felix Felicis by the gallon before every lesson?"

"Felix Felicis is highly toxic in large quantities," Harry said sagely, "and as a NEWT Potions student you should know that."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Of course, Potions Master Potter," Blaise said, his lips tightly pursed and words a false saccharine.

"Don't make me sick," Hermione muttered. "I've just eaten."

"You can call me Professor, Blaise," Harry said.

Blaise was silent for a couple of moments, his eyes wandering between the two of them.

"Is that what you asked your little Defence group to do?"

Harry blushed despite himself.

"Professor Potter," Blaise murmured to himself, "it could be worse, I guess."

"I really don't believe that, Zabini," Hermione said.

"I didn't do that…" Harry ground out.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, still feeling the lingering burn of a blush at the back of his neck.

"Ah, yes, Professor Potter - noble resistor of the scourge of practical learning, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, Dolores Um –"

It was something Snape would say, right down to the drawl, and that was a person Harry could go without thinking about.

"All you need to know is that I'm better now," Harry said in a rush, cutting off Blaise before he could say anything even more Snape-esque.

"Much better," Harry added proudly.

He ignored Hermione's elbow colliding with his chest with a grunt and answered Blaise's questioning eyebrows.

"At Potions, that is."

Blaise's eyes seemed to light with glee. Harry sighed inside, knowing there was really no stopping him when he got like this.

"I have – well had, a thirty galleon bet with Malfoy that you're cheating. Malfoy's convinced that you're also not that good, even with whatever cheating you're doing, and Slughorn is overmarking you. Apparently refusing to associate with a Death Eater's son, who spends the entire year acting incredibly suspiciously, is a sign of lunacy. Fancy that."

They all snorted at that.

"So, what's your explanation, Harry?" Hermione asked. "Did some mystical, unexplained source of knowledge just land in your lap?"

"Yes, Potter. Do tell," Blaise added, sharing a conspiratorial grin with Hermione that screamed of an alliance he needed to sabotage. Immediately.

He really wished Ron were here, though the idea of him willingly stepping into a Slytherin's home as a guest was laughable.

"Me. Cheat? Weren't you mocking me not a year ago about some Daily Prophet editorial that described me as the moral compass of Magical Britain?"

Hermione shook her head beside him.

"Well, yes. That writer doesn't know you. I do, Chosen One," Blaise said.

Blaise waved his hand impatiently as if Harry's burning ears were nothing of consequence. To be fair, it was incredibly common when Harry was at the receiving end of one of Blaise's sequences of verbal jabs to spend half the conversation with a pink tinge.

"I found a book."

Blaise's eyebrows rose in unison.

"A book that going by Granger's explanation just landed in your lap."

"Actually, I got it out of Snape's supply cupboard," he corrected.

Hermione elbowed him again.

"Hey!" He exclaimed.

Harry rubbed his side. Her elbows hurt.

"Then I put it in my lap to read it," he corrected, again.

He managed to catch her elbow the third time it came for his chest.

"Just tell him," she snapped, and she added, "Professor Snape's old textbook."

"So… violent, Granger," Blaise murmured, awe in his voice. "Are those the sparks of brilliance that saw Malfoy crying in the Slytherin Common Room in third year?"

Hermione's fingers worried at the thin, yet remarkably gaudy chain peeking through the neck of her jacket.

"He cried?" Harry asked, desperately hoping the answer was yes.

"Whined, but it's all the same with him. I think I could power a Patronus out of that memory," Blaise commented, a genuine smile on his face.

"Out of something that petty?" Harry asked.

Blaise snorted, his almond eyes squinting into slits.

"You doubt me, Potter?"

Harry didn't say anything, but his opinion must have been written in every aspect of his face with how quickly Blaise reached for his wand.

"Expecto patronum."

A silvery mist spouted out of Blaise's wand before quickly dissipating into vaporous fog. Harry managed to catch out the beginnings of a pair of ears before the spell failed.

"Impressive," Hermione said.

Her tone said it was anything but.

"Even you're not that petty, Blaise," Harry chided.

"I suppose I'll think of something else," Blaise acceded.

He was momentarily contemplative before his gaze bored into Harry. He must have read the continuing doubt in Harry's face. It wasn't that Harry doubted his ability to cast a Patronus. He could, and he wasn't exactly the happiest person, but Blaise had always seemed to be, at best, emotionally constipated by Harry's estimations.

He was self-aware enough to know that that was rich coming from him. He remembered his fifth year with a cringe.

"Expecto patronum," he repeated.

A big cat emerged from his wand and roamed on the table, head held aloft and ears swivelling to-and-fro.

"A leopard," Hermione said. "Fits, I guess."

They watched as the Patronus sat on its paws before them on the table, inspecting them for a second with white-blue eyes. It seemed to find them acceptable as it languidly slipped into a graceful recline and began to lick its paws. Somehow, it made something so stereotypically housecat look regal.

"Not quite a lion," Harry said.

They watched its ministrations for a few seconds before Blaise dismissed it with a quick flick of his wand, placing it back at his side on the table.

"And there I was about to conjure it a throne," Harry joked.

Blaise's full lips curled into a satisfied smile. There was an edge of accomplishment in the way he inspected his nails.

"African leopard," Blaise said, "and I'm more than a couple of brain cells over the threshold of the Gryffindor mascot. Sorry, Potter."

"Just a couple?" Harry asked.

It wasn't like Blaise to implicate his own house by association when insulting Gryffindor.

"Well, you've not all descended to the intellectual prowess of Crabbe and Goyle, have you? I knew I shouldn't have tried to offer you a compliment."

Harry laughed, a warm feeling in his chest when Blaise reluctantly chuckled himself.

"It's like you and Malfoy, but... friendly!" Hermione exclaimed, a disbelieving giggle escaping her that she quickly covered up with her hands. Harry watched, bewildered, as a violent blush began to grow upon her cheeks as if she were embarrassed to be caught laughing.

It was a punch to the gut for Harry to realise that this was the first time he'd heard Hermione laugh since Ron had left them. There was a deep sense of failing - that he'd failed to fill the void left by their best friend. Since Ron had left, he and Hermione barely spoke; there were no silly conversations, aimless brainstorming or harmless speculation on how their friends were doing at Hogwarts. It just wasn't the same, and perhaps he could have done more? But then again, could anyone really replace Ron?

"I'd like to think I don't have the relentless obsession Malfoy has with Potter, Granger," Blaise said.

His expression was incredibly cool and his lip curled in disgust.

"Unlike Malfoy, he's trustworthy," Harry immediately said.

"I think?" He added after a slight pause.

He hadn't intended for that to come out like a question.

"I think?" Hermione whispered dramatically at him.

Blaise shook his head, disbelieving.

"A glowing commendation from Undesirable Number One, I suppose," Blaise drawled. "As If the Death Eaters needed another reason to track me down."

"You're on the run?" Hermione asked, visibly kicking herself before her words had turned to silence.

"No, Granger, I decided to live in a Muggle flat under Fidelius using as little magic as possible for a laugh. I'd suggest trying it, but by the looks of the two of you you've been living and enjoying a particularly scenic life since Hogwarts."

Blaise looked like he was on the verge of saying something incredibly spiteful, of lashing out. Nerves were still remarkably threadbare on both sides, buried deep beneath the playful banter.

The heavy downcast of his brow slowly diminished when he made eye contact with Harry, seeming to think better of whatever scathing retort he'd had on his mind.

"Of course not, Granger," Blaise mumbled, draining the rest of his tea down in one long gulp with a grunt. It was probably the most human thing he'd done all night, such a clear expression of exasperation.

"My mother is very rich," he offered after a rather uncomfortable silence, "and to take over a country, you need gold, a lot of it. I'd make fine leverage, as you can imagine."

Blaise somehow managed to sound oddly proud of that fact.

"Even haggard and stressed, you're as vain as can be, Zabini," Hermione said.

"It pains him, but he and Malfoy are surprisingly alike in that regard," Harry added, the beginnings of a grin on his face. It wasn't really that true, but comparisons between Blaise and Malfoy were an easy way to crack past his inscrutable face to the world. Blaise never failed to look like he had been slapped.

"The only reason I haven't kicked you out of my flat, Granger, is because of that lovely punch you gave Malfoy in third year. Parkinson was whining about you for weeks. Glorious. Don't push your luck," he said, pointing accusingly at her.

He turned to Harry, the signs of a smile clearly warring with his desire to look serious.

"And you, Potter. People seem to be under the impression that you're going to save the world or something equally stupid. I wouldn't want to kick you out and find out that Goyle somehow wandered into Muggle London and killed you with a miscast alohomora on my doorstep."

Harry grinned easily, pushing his empty mug of tea towards the centre of the table.

"Are these the Pureblood manners that Malfoy was forever telling me Muggleborns don't have?" Hermione asked.

She squinted her eyes deeply at Blaise as if looking closely would make his manners suddenly visible. The sarcasm in her voice was a fine challenge to Blaise's own and before Blaise could retort, Harry interjected. He really didn't want to find out how Horcrux-influenced Hermione and Blaise clashed.

"We wouldn't dream of it, Zabini," Harry said, deciding to be a little more diplomatic than Hermione.

Blaise inclined his head indulgently, leaning back in his chair and caressing his chipped mug in his hands with his fingers. Harry's eyesight wasn't the best, but even he could make out the threading cracks along the mug's surface that were the marks of excessive use of reparo. Blaise wasn't clumsy; that he was sure of.

"I'd say you're as much a know-it-all as usual, but your grasp of the obvious has been inconsistent tonight," Blaise said.

He got up and turned towards his cupboards, sifting through them again.

"Me live Muggle for no reason," Blaise muttered under his breath.

He tossed a bundle of compression bandages onto the table before turning towards the freezer and pulling out a small bag of ice.

"You can heal those the muggle way or if you're willing to trust me, Granger," he said, looking truly pained. "I'm good enough with rudimentary healing charms. I can fix those… unsightly bruises on your face."

Hermione turned to Harry.

"Forgotten my glowing commendation already, Granger?"

"Shove off, Zabini."

There was a question in her earnest gaze at Harry.

"He's trustworthy," Harry confirmed.

Blaise watched their byplay with barely disguised interest, rapping his fingers impatiently on the table next to where he'd placed the ice and bandages.

"Go ahead," Hermione said, lifting her chin towards Blaise in challenge.

"Episkey," he intoned with a brutish looking motion of his wand.

It was different to Harry's own usage of the spell, the wand movement almost violent, but he'd only adopted it after Tonks had used it on him. Mimicry. He wasn't at all aware of the theory behind it.

Harry watched with interest as the splotches of purple and blue across Hermione's neck and cheek, in some places speckled with the mosaic pattern of Nagini's scales, quickly faded into a raw pink.

"That was a serious bruise, Granger," Blaise murmured as the raw look of Hermione's healed skin disappeared. "You have more?"

Hermione shook her head and Blaise shrugged, knowing not to fight a battle not worth fighting. He turned to Harry who waved him off. He'd gotten off largely scot-free; though the burn at his chest twinged fiercely at that thought.

"It's an upward flick into a jab. Eh-PIS-kee. Make sure you put force on the second syllable. It works best when the jab synchronises with the 'kee'," Blaise recited offhandedly before picking up the unneeded bandages and ice.

Hermione gave him a nod and smiled, one that met her eyes. Even with a piece of Voldemort's soul wrapped around her neck, filling her head with insidious thoughts and an emotional malaise, there were few things she appreciated more than knowledge freely given.

Blaise's eyes met his own. The curl to his lip was more than mocking.

"Why didn't you heal Granger, Potter?"

Harry scratched the stubble growing on his chin, incredibly embarrassed and feeling far too exposed.

"I didn't know it worked on bruises," he half-lied, "I've only tried it on split lips and broken noses."

"It's alright, Harry," Hermione said, patting his shoulder sympathetically.

She took out her wand and pointed it towards her waist.

"Episkey."

Hermione stretched beside him with an appreciative sigh. It filled him with the memory of Crookshanks and Hermione reclining together in an armchair, a book somewhere in Hermione's cramped lap, at the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room. Simpler times. It almost made him miss the cat.

"That's much better," Blaise said, audibly pleased.

"Does it work well on burns?" Harry asked.

"Depends. If it's due to a non-magical source, yes. Burns caused by Dark magic are obviously resistant, but it should at least ease the pain. Anything else it should work fine for," Blaise quickly rattled off.

A Horcrux burning against flesh seemed a lot like dark magic to Harry, but it was worth a try. He coughed at Hermione, gesturing towards his chest.

Hermione nodded and pointed her wand.

"Episkey."

Blaise had been right. The pain eased ever so slightly making it easier to breathe. Harry sank into his chair and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. He finally let himself feel the strain, the horror that had pumped through his veins. As he closed his eyes, he could almost relive his struggle with Nagini controlling Bagshot's corpse. With the pain less intense, he felt slightly more at ease.

"Thanks."

Hermione gave him a wan smile while Blaise hummed noncommittedly, a frown on his face.

"No wand, Potter?" Blaise asked despite already seeming to know the answer.

Blaise looked deeply disturbed at the thought, and Harry's stomach curled and rolled anew with the two pieces of holly and phoenix feather buried in the bag he was prodding with his foot.

"More tea, I think," Blaise muttered. "and I'll get the paracetamol."

He turned on his heel and walked off.

"And don't even try to be noble about this, Potter. You look terrible," Blaise snapped from somewhere in the corridor.

Harry's teeth came together with a dull clack, startling him. He'd honestly been unaware that he'd been about to protest.

"I need to learn how to do that," Hermione mumbled from where she'd half-slumped against the table, her wand pointed towards her right hand.

"Episkey… Episkey."

She rubbed her hands together, a blissful sigh escaping her.

"I really should have brought a book on healing spells."

"Would have been handy," Harry said with a shrug.

Hermione had been invaluable regardless, as always.

Harry tilted his head towards the doorway Blaise had exited the room from.

"So… what do you think?"

"He's more talkative than I ever remember him being," Hermione said. "Now that I say that, I don't think I've ever heard him speak before sixth year."

She nibbled at her nails. It was a habit Hermione frequently adopted when presented with a particularly troublesome assignment that refused to immediately yield before the might of the Hogwarts Library.

"He's not usually this talkative. I guess the loneliness was starting to drive him barmy," Harry suggested.

"He's okay for a Slytherin, I guess," Hermione said.

There was a sudden seriousness to her face.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

Hermione looked oddly hesitant and placed her head against the table, seeming on the cusp of dozing.

"He gives you something neither Ron or I could give you. Doesn't he, Harry?"

Harry froze up.

"What do you mean?"

His answering question came out sounding more dangerously than he'd intended, but Hermione carried on.

"He gives you someone to fight, with no repercussions. I mean Ron isn't anywhere as witty and would likely get mad, let's be honest, and I'd take it personally."

When Hermione put it that way, Harry could see her point.

"Maybe."

Hermione tutted impatiently.

"You have no idea what a stark difference your attitude has been in these last couple of minutes compared to our time in that bloody tent."

Harry felt incredibly guilty.

"I like him. He's good for you," Hermione admitted. It didn't sound as grudging as Harry had expected it to.

"Because he taught you a basic Healing Charm?"

"Not just that. Stop being difficult, Harry," Hermione said, lifting her face where it'd been buried in her impromptu hair cushion.

Her cloying smile made him feel incredibly self-conscious, as if she was beholden to a truth that she could not share.

"Besides, he seems to handle your noble, self-sacrificing streak just fine. For that alone, I have to approve. Not even Ginny managed that."

Harry shrugged, not wanting to even touch on that subject.

"Have I got a fan, Granger?"

Blaise tossed the bottle of paracetamol at Harry which he caught with an easy grace. When done, having swallowed down the chalky pill with a grimace, he offered it to Hermione who shook her head, still devoting her focus to giving Blaise a challenging gaze.

"Don't push your luck, Zabini," she said.

There was something pointed in her statement.

Blaise pursed his lips after a sharp intake of breath. Their showdown continued, the two of them seeming to probe each other with cold expressions. Harry was beyond confused, but for some unknown reason he held his tongue.

Finally, Blaise broke their eye contact and rolled his eyes.

"On second thoughts, I think it'd be prudent if you two got some rest."

He sounded furious, a quiet storm in his curt tone.

Hermione looked incredibly apologetic, opening her mouth to apologise, but Blaise shook his head firmly and walked out. Harry was just bewildered. He had the feeling that he'd missed an incredibly important conversation that may or not have concerned him.

"Don't worry, Harry," Hermione tiredly said at his inquisitive gaze.

He was too tired to really argue and just grunted.

* * *

Blaise was both a good host and a bad one. Even after that Hermione-induced disaster, he'd came back to the kitchen with two spare mattresses, brought them to a spacious lounge and then transfigured the mattresses into camp beds. He'd left Harry and Hermione to their rest after a sharp wish of goodnight.

He'd apologised when they'd woken up in the early evening to find the mattresses he'd transfigured had reverted while they were asleep. They'd both slept so soundly they hadn't noticed. As if to make up for that error, Blaise seemed to make a big deal out of anticipating their needs. Harry had most appreciated the food and (Harry's favourite had to be the beef bourguignon) Blaise engaging conversation of his own volition when things got dreary. Despite these bizarre hospitable tendencies from Blaise that Harry found difficult to reconcile with the teenager he knew from school, the snide comments about appearances were ever-present, if a little politer than Harry remembered them being. Some things didn't change.

During breakfast the day after they'd came, a pleasant meal of French toast, Blaise brandished a hedgehog-looking brush and a wide-toothed comb at Hermione. Her reply was a blank look.

"I have a brush and comb. Thanks," she said, voice carefully neutral.

"Well, I can only assume you don't have either," he said an equally blank expression on his face.

"Fix… that," he gestured in the direction of Hermione's decidedly bushy hair, still wet from her shower. "In exchange for my hospitality, you can prevent that from turning into a long-forgotten topiary."

"Why do you even care?"

Hermione's tone was dangerous, scary enough to cow Harry or Ron without much effort, but sadly for Hermione, Blaise was Blaise.

"I'm vain, as you mentioned a couple of hours ago, for the fourth time," he said dryly, "and I like my guests to look presentable."

Blaise looked pointedly to the comb and brush in his hands, no sign of him yielding in his expression.

Hermione took the comb and brush with a sigh. Blaise had woken them both at six, insisting that he wasn't altering his routine for them. They were both still exhausted, even after all the sleep they'd gotten yesterday. Tiredness that had seeped into your very bones was slow to leave. It was just easier to go along with his demands at this point.

"Merry Christmas, Granger," Blaise said with a charming smile, arms held aloft as if he'd given her the world.

It was almost entirely disarming despite how diminished he seemed compared to his usual pristine appearance at Hogwarts. Hermione was clearly unimpressed and idly inspected the brush he'd given her. Harry didn't recall ever seeing Hermione with something similar.

"It was Christmas yesterday, Zabini," she remarked with a snap.

"We know you're the brains of this outfit, Granger," Blaise said placidly, ignoring Hermione's comment.

"Trust me, remember? Stop being difficult like Potter was being Christmas morning," Hermione squeaked at the realisation that Blaise had heard everything. The flat may have been in an expensive area, but it was still small. Harry was strangely unconcerned with the idea of Blaise hearing, thinking back to that moment at the lake. Perhaps what he heard would help with his insecurities about their friendship.

"I know it's not a magic fix like that product you used during the Yule Ball, but it'll make your hair more manageable."

Hermione gave him and the accessories in her hands a dubious look. He could imagine she'd heard similar things from Parvati and Lavender over the years.

"He won't drop it until you at least try it, Hermione," Harry said after a crunchy bite rich with egg, butter and a smattering of demerara sugar. Blaise was admittedly a decent (really good) cook. Even in his mind that admission was grudging.

"I'm not difficult," she said to herself.

She rose out of her chair with a loud huff, conjured a simple hand mirror with a quick swish of her wand and began to brush her hair, half-heartedly.

"Not like Harry anyway," she muttered.

Harry ignored that in favour of finishing his breakfast.

"Well, you can prove that by detangling first with the comb and then use the brush, but don't start at the roots," Blaise ordered from his seat, the careless smirk on his face of a Slytherin in his element.

Hermione huffed but did as told. Harry was sure that the barely restrained violence she was attempting to tame her hair with was not imagined nor feigned.

"What about Harry?" Hermione ground out, struggling with a particularly resistant knot. "His hair is… well…"

"I'm still thinking of a solution to deal with Potter's rat nest that doesn't involve cutting it or letting it grow," Blaise said.

He tapped a long finger against his cheek in deep thought.

"I'm afraid it's likely you'll have beaten the Dark Lord long before I even come up with something half feasible."

Hermione nodded, oblivious to the splutter of indignation about to leave Harry's mouth.

"Sensible."

Harry finished his breakfast just as Blaise sat down to start his own.

"It's a lot better, Hermione," Harry said encouragingly. "R- "

He cut himself off before he finished his sentence: Ron would like it. Focusing on his empty plate, Harry didn't dare look Hermione in the eye. He didn't want to know if she'd caught what he was going to say.

Blaise nodded approvingly, unknowing of the wound that Harry had almost opened.

It wasn't anywhere as orderly as the day she'd slathered her hair in Sleekeazy's Hair Potion, but it was a massive improvement. It was still bushy, but nowhere near as frizzy – curlier if anything.

"Why'd he have to be right? Hermione groaned.

"You get used to it," Harry said.

Hermione gave him a dangerous glare.

"Eventually," he hedged.

With a harsh flick of her wand, the strands of hair that'd fallen to the floor with her ministrations disappeared.

"How long are you two staying?" Blaise asked, leaning casually against the fridge with his plate in hand.

It was strange to see Blaise doing something so casual as eating stood up, but Harry was slowly concluding that there was a difference between Hogwarts Blaise and hiding under Fidelius Blaise, or perhaps it was simply a difference between a public and private persona. Or maybe he'd just went nuts and didn't care so much about decorum anymore.

"A couple of days," Harry said.

Blaise nodded absently, turned to his fridge, and with a lazy flick of his wand made the surface transparent.

"Grazie Dio for geminio."

"Grazie indeed," Hermione echoed after a nosy peek behind Blaise's back at the contents of his fridge.

Hermione stepped forward and the comb and brush dropped on the table with a dull thunk.

"Wait. What have you been duplicating? It can't be food. You know Gamp's -"

Blaise gave Hermione a scathing look, more appropriate for a particularly troublesome beetle, refusing to be cleanly crushed during Potions, than a person.

"Muggle money, of course. Getting fresh produce from the farmer's market isn't cheap. You think I'm going to eat supermarket filth?"

At Hermione's horrified look, Blaise shrugged.

"By the time it wears off, the money will have changed hands at least a dozen times. Well, the notes maybe three or four times. The coins are quite hardy, you know?"

It sounded perfectly sensible to Harry. Morally, it was questionable, but survival was survival as far as he was concerned. Blaise turned back to the fridge, mumbling under his breath about what he'd need to purchase for two ravenous Gryffindors.

"That's not the point!" Hermione shrieked.

Familiar with the sound of a Hermione crusade, Harry considered the possibility of telling Blaise they might leave tomorrow. He wouldn't wish the sequel to SPEW on his worst enemy.

Maybe Snape though. Definitely Snape.

* * *

Blaise refused to stop abusing the Geminio Curse and Hermione grew increasingly shrill about it, to no effect. Hermione had made a point of turning her nose up at Blaise's cooking, but a couple of looks at Harry contentedly feasting generally broke her.

When they weren't arguing, Hermione was debating and dissecting spells with Blaise in the dozens of books he'd brought to her after their first day. It was an impressive peace offering if Harry had ever seen one. Harry listened, marvelling privately at their differences in approach – Hermione had a very effective and rigorous approach to spellwork, trusting entirely in literary text, yet Blaise was incredibly flexible, being the type to take the core of a spell and make alterations to the wand movements and diction and produce more or less the same effect. It made Harry think Blaise would make a terrifying duellist with how difficult he'd be to predict. What he was doing must have made sense to Hermione, as she never questioned his thought processes, but it seemed almost whimsical and random to Harry. Hermione had claimed it to be cheating as his wand was made of pine, whatever that meant.

On the fourth night, they found themselves sat around the kitchen table once more, a pile of books to Hermione's left, one at Blaise's right, and Harry was idly drilling all the spells he knew with Hermione's wand.

Blaise seemed to wince with every burst of light that escaped Harry's wand.

"That's It, Potter. No more light shows," Blaise snapped.

Harry put Hermione's wand back on the table with a snort. Blaise's eyes followed him with the familiar glimmer of humour in their dark brown irises.

"I don't have Firewhisky, which I'd really appreciate right now, but I have some white wine. It's a Chardonnay that was bottled in Sicily. Pretty good," Blaise offered, fishing a wine bottle out of a cupboard.

They drank in silence, admiring the gentle patter of snow outside Blaise's window. It was surprisingly good, nothing compared to the burn and fire of a decent Firewhisky, but good all the same. It had a sharp citrus tang followed by a smooth buttery finish. Pleasant.

He was glad that his friends got along. It made the ache of Ron a little more bearable and filled him with a sense of befuddled wonderment. He somehow had the feeling that the Sorting Hat hadn't meant taking refuge together in an unplottable location for inter-house unity. It was an extreme solution, but one that he was happy to experience. It made the ever-present reminder of Voldemort's continued existence less daunting, knowing another friend was safe for at least the moment.

Harry was well into his second glass before he spoke, breaking the sacred silence after days of on and off bickering.

"Do you really think that we'll win, Blaise?"

Blaise finished his sip exceptionally slowly.

"Potter… Harry."

Despite Blaise's tone being incredibly soft, there was no mistaking its mocking undertones. There was a playfulness to the smile that crept across his face.

"The alternative is I live in this flat for the rest of my life. You don't have to believe you'll succeed, or believe in the idea of me supporting you, but unfortunately my sanity depends on it."

"No pressure," Hermione muttered, nursing her glass gingerly. Somehow, her wand had ended up tucked behind her ear in a mimicry of Luna. Another person Harry missed dearly. Maybe, subconsciously at least, Hermione felt for Luna strongly enough to copy one of her habits.

Harry and Hermione shared a look, both exasperated and equal in their reluctant amusement.

"The fate of Magical Britain and Blaise Zabini's sanity. No pressure, huh?" Harry asked.

Blaise just dipped his head and rose to his feet.

"I'm glad we have an understanding," Blaise said before topping up their glasses.

"Not even going to try and convince us that you're more important?"

Blaise cleared his throat impatiently before sinking back into his seat. He sipped his glass quietly.

"That, Granger, goes without saying," Blaise said after a lengthy pause he'd clearly relished.

All too soon the bottle was empty. A single glass had quickly spiralled into five for Harry, three for Hermione, and three for Blaise.

"Your interpretation of the Principle of Artificianimate Quasi-Dominance was surprisingly developed, Zabini."

"I was almost sorted into Ravenclaw, Granger," Blaise admitted. "Unfortunately, the hat seemed to be fixated on Slytherin."

His face turned rather ugly.

"It seemed to think pretending to be a blood supremacist would be character building for a foreign wizard."

"You're not?" Hermione asked.

Blaise rolled his eyes and took a deep drain of the remaining dregs in his glass as if they would save him from Hermione's questions.

"I have opinions on blood purity, but not opinions strong enough to really care about what Mud- I mean Muggleborns and Half-bloods concern themselves with."

"You hate everyone equally," Harry said.

"Exactly," Blaise said.

He gave Harry an appreciative glance for the easy out. Blaise wasn't a blood purist, as far as Harry could understand. Blaise disliked that Muggleborns had little appreciation for the culture of the Wizarding World of itself, but rather saw it as a reflection of Victorian Muggle England rather than its own nuanced culture. Despite that, he was perfectly fine with Muggles, and Harry had spent years trying to battle that contradictory viewpoint. He had the feeling it was due to family that Blaise was more accepting of Muggles than he was of Muggleborns. The more that he thought of it, he didn't think he'd ever heard Blaise mention any Muggleborn family. Perhaps, getting to know Hermione would better Blaise's views.

"You think I'm proud people will classify me as being equal with Malfoy of all people, Granger? Crabbe? Goyle?"

There was nothing but revulsion in his face.

"Regardless of that, the more… zealous Purebloods in Britain wouldn't consider me a true Pureblood anyway. My maternal grandmother is a Muggle, as I said when you unceremoniously entered my life, Granger."

"I have more questions," Hermione slurred.

Blaise looked incredibly wary, but he shrugged.

"What'd you get in your OWLs?"

"Four Os, three Es and two As. Don't bother telling me yours. Everyone knows your results," he said.

Blaise's lip curled at Hermione's ensuing blush – an amusing mix of embarrassment and pride. He nodded at Harry.

"Yours too."

Hermione span her hand, clearly asking for more detail.

"The Os were in Astronomy, Charms, History of Magic – "

"Binns!" Harry spat, disbelieving. He was fairly sure he remembered a certain dark-skinned Slytherin half-asleep during most of Binns' lectures in fourth year.

"I bought a Self-Writing Quill in third year, Potter. Nowhere near as good as the ones the Weasley twins sell, but it got the job done. I had great notes."

"Brilliant," he murmured to himself, again and again, into the wood of the table.

"Yes, it's brilliant the things you can achieve when you don't hallucinate during an exam," Blaise commented dryly.

"He didn't hallucinate," Hermione said, "and back to your grades. They're good!"

"I'm aware and is that a tone of surprise, Granger?" Blaise muttered. "The other O was in Arithmancy. The Es: Transfiguration, Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts. The two As in Herbology and Ancient Runes."

"Herbology… that makes so much sense. You probably hated to get dirty," Harry said, snapping his fingers in triumph.

"I will neither confirm nor deny."

It was as good as a confirmation.

"Runes though? You're bilingual, aren't you?" Hermione queried.

"Italian, Portuguese and English. I'm not very good with Nordic languages. Elder Futhark was positively barbaric," Blaise said with an embarrassed wince.

"Wow, Blaise admitting a weakness. You've drank that much?"

"Shut it, Potty," Blaise snapped with no bite.

Hermione's humoured snort was in diametric opposition to her fierce reactions when Malfoy called him that.

"Next question, Zabini," Hermione declared.

He tensed all anew. Harry in his drunken stupor was confused about what Blaise possibly had to be nervous about.

"Why are you using as little magic as possible? You didn't seem to mind when I used a Scouring Charm to clean my hair."

Blaise chuckled to himself, visibly deflating in his chair.

"It gets boring around here. Making household tasks as long and tedious as possible leaves me with less time with nothing to do," he admitted, running a hand through his closely cropped hair. "I've already read all my books twice over."

"Now, do I get to ask any questions?" Blaise asked.

Harry thought he sounded perfectly reasonable, but his drunk mind was too busy admiring how Blaise's skin tone managed to merge with the wood. It was almost like magic. Pretty. Was Blaise a dryad or something? They had oaken skin, if he remembered Hagrid's gruff lectures correctly.

"Golden brown," Harry murmured to himself. "Gold that is brown."

Hermione's hair whipped against Harry's head due to the suddenness with which she turned to stare at him with. Harry's mouth seemed to move of its own volition, and Hermione's posture seemed to become unnaturally fixed. Blaise was simply slack jawed.

"Well… Harry is an interesting drunk. Do you know what I've noticed, Zabini?"

There was something daring and predatory in the way Hermione leaned towards Blaise, snapping the dark-skinned man out of his daze.

"Let's not," Blaise said rapidly, his gaze flickering rapidly between Harry and Hermione.

Hermione searched Blaise's face carefully, seeming to be content to drop her prodding and she absentmindedly cuffed Harry on the back of his head. He'd been happily reciting permutations of 'gold that is brown' to himself.

They continued as if the last two or three minutes hadn't even happened. Harry mindlessly took his explorations of dryad Blaise and the 'brown gold that is' to the deep recesses of his loopy mind.

"There I was about to grant you the right to ask a question, Mr Mystery, Mr Pine Wand," Hermione said.

Blaise reflexively reached for his empty wine glass. He passed off the motion by idly toying with the stem of the glass, astutely ignoring Harry's drunken rumbly chuckle.

"You've not asked anything about our… quest. Why?" Harry managed to slur out.

To Harry's mind, that was an incredibly tricky question. One that he'd have to think deeply on before answering, but it must have been something Blaise was expecting as he answered readily.

"For our mutual safety, and I didn't think you came here seeking a collaborator. You're here to forget and recuperate. I'm happy to be able to provide a sense of refuge for you," Blaise said with a nod to himself.

Happy. The silent prowling of a leopard echoed in Harry's mind, and it made his drunken mind feel oddly melancholy and giddy.

"We're thankful for your hospitality," Hermione said.

"Yes, we won't forget this," Harry said, as earnest as any drunk teenager with the world on his shoulders. "Ever."

Blaise nodded.

"Before I forget… since your moral compass overpowers your common sense, Granger," Blaise said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a wad of money.

"This is all authentic before you screech at me," he added quickly.

He held it towards Hermione, the illusion of oneness with the table broken in Harry's mind. He groaned silently in his throat.

"Potter would say no and the alcohol hit you first," he said in response to her questioning gaze at his hand. "Take it – maybe nine hundred pounds there. I'd give you more, but I need the rest as Geminio bases."

"Thank you, Blaise," Hermione said with a shuddering laugh.

She hiccupped a little, seemingly overcome with emotion. He'd never known that Hermione was an emotional drunk, but he was dead certain that she was on the cusp of tears.

He couldn't quite believe it either.

Blaise nodded at him, understanding in that annoying way of his.

"You're alright, Zabini," Hermione said, entirely serious, "I hope you understand that."

"Yeah…" He said with an eye roll, dismissing Hermione. "Use it to eat something. There's no reason we should all be in a competition to look emaciated."

"You do the same," Harry ordered, managing to not sound like a complete drunkard.

Blaise jerked back a little, truly shocked, and then he laughed, low and loud. His ensuing smile met his eyes. It was a welcome sight that provoked an answering smile on Harry's own face.

"I will, Potter. Don't darken my doorstep ever again," Blaise teased.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said. "Maybe for the next Dark Lord."

Blaise's eyes lit up with something, but then it was gone, and he was ushering them to the door, large palms pressing insistently into their upper backs. Hermione was giggling, and Harry was just confused. It was maddeningly anticlimactic, and Harry wasn't entirely sure why it had to be like this.

Was Blaise afraid to let them stay longer?

"Bye, Zabini," Hermione said with a final smile.

They were all stood in the threshold of Blaise's flat, before the door leading back to tents, prophecies, and Horcruxes.

"Bad host," he slurred.

Blaise looked entirely amused to Harry's consternation.

"We wouldn't leave if he didn't strong-arm us, Harry. Besides, it's time we got going," Hermione explained as if to a five-year old.

He rolled his eyes, poorly, going by Blaise's snort.

"Thanks… Blaise," Harry said.

He took in Blaise's face, unsure what to make of the sadness clearly broadcast in his features. In his own way, tipsy Blaise was clearly an even more emotional drunk than Hermione. Drunk Harry didn't like the sight of unhappiness on Blaise. Seriousness, mocking and disgust were the mainstays. How could he even be unhappy during such a festive period anyway?

"Happy Easter!"

Blaise's right eyebrow rose astronomically high, even by his usual standards. Harry must have said it wrong.

"Happy.. Ea- never mind," Blaise began before thinking better of it.

Harry had always appreciated Blaise's aptitude for knowing what battles not to fight. Besides, confusion was a better suit than unhappy.

"That's better," Harry murmured.

Blaise shrugged at him, the muscles in his shoulders moving through the elegant motion with enviable ease. Harry was sure if he attempted to imitate it in his current state he'd end up on the floor.

"Give the Dark Lord hell for me, Potter. Hanging, head on a pike, drawn and quartered…"

There was a definite viciousness to Blaise's voice.

"Make it appropriately medieval," he ordered with an imperious nod.

Harry nodded back, having only understood Dark Lord and hell. He'd send him to hell where bad things go.

"Yes, Blaise. Whatever you want," he slurred unintelligibly.

Blaise gave a disgusted little cough and clapped him on the shoulder, leaning in to peer at his eyes. He searched for something for a moment, maybe some inner conviction or something appropriately heroic he'd need for killing Voldemort, before backing away.

"That's a good Gryffindor," he said with a wry shake of his head.

Blaise's nose wrinkled minutely as if Harry were something disgusting beneath his nails and Harry laughed himself to the point he felt sick, ignoring Hermione gently rubbing his back. It was like nothing had changed.

He could still feel the heat of Blaise's hand on his shoulder.

"Put him to bed, Granger," Blaise said, sounding far too tired of Harry's antics.

"Way ahead of you, Zabini," she said, sounding incredibly lucid to Harry's jealous ears.

That wasn't fair, was the only thing he could think as the door shut behind them with a quiet click.

Regardless of their sudden departure, his spirits were unimaginably high. Harry was still confused as to why they'd decided to leave while still tipsy. Blaise would surely put them up for another night, but the sense of finality was profound. There was no going back now.

Harry turned to Hermione feeling as if he could take on Voldemort threefold. He'd send him to hell like Blaise had said.

"Where to?"

"A forest and then the tent, I imagine," Hermione remarked dryly, the sibilance of a slur still on her voice.

She was sobering up quickly in the nippy winter air.

"I was feeling like the Forest of Dean, personally. And then I'll want to spend some time reading that awful woman's book about Dumbledore. Think of the lies she's filled it with…"

"Maybe there will be some hints towards… something. Treasure," Harry added sagely.

Hermione hummed, neither agreeing or disagreeing.

He looked back at the door to Blaise's flat before Hermione span on the spot and dragged him away. Harry's head lurched with a sense of vertigo as Hermione pulled him towards a blind spot behind a large recycling bin and then into the void of Apparition with a quiet pop.

Harry hoped he didn't puke.


	2. the future is a timeless mirror

Rating: M

Summary: It's Valentine's Day (an excuse for smut).

* * *

The burning ache of fullness in his rear, the steady throb and twitch of Blaise's cock inside of him, and the powerful heat of Blaise's body on his. All profound feelings that had Harry grabbing Blaise by a taut buttock and pulling him closer. Blaise's balls touched against his arse gently, provoking a mutual moan from them.

"Harry," Blaise moaned into his ear.

Blaise's fingers laced with his own where they were pressed flat against the wall. This close, Blaise's scent was powerful - a fragrant mix of light aftershave, sweat, and the sweet fruity lotion he favoured.

Harry exhaled lowly, a brief shudder wracking his frame as Blaise planted featherlight kisses along the shell of his ear. Blaise ground against him in slow circles, pushing him further into the wall with each gyration.

Harry ended up flat against it, face turned sideways to avoid damaging his glasses, with Blaise still balls deep inside him and almost joined to his back.

"I'm starting to feel like an obstacle," Harry gasped out as Blaise pulled out, torturously slowly, "between you and your true desire, the wall."

Harry cried out when Blaise slammed back in with a loud clap of flesh.

"Hmm…? You were saying something, Harry?"

Blaise's full lips were upon his before he could even think. It was incredibly hard to think, in fact, between Blaise's devilish tongue and the sudden angle change that pushed the head of Blaise's cock against his prostate. Harry rose to his tiptoes with a squirm, as if to escape. Blaise's hips were insistent and simply followed him, pressing the firmness of his abdomen back into the small of Harry' back. A hand slid between their bodies to palm the erection riding Harry's stomach, following a prominent vein with the back of a nail. With a jerk Harry rocked his hips back and forth, seeking the friction of Blaise's sizeable cock against his prostate and the teasing of Blaise's hand.

"Stop playing and get to it," Harry ground out as Blaise deliberately slowed his ministrations to a snail's pace.

Blaise stroked Harry with a toying twist at the end, driving the sensitivity of his cock to unbearable levels, and restarted that infernal grinding. Harry did what little he could to follow it, moving his hips with Blaise.

"So demanding today," Blaise rumbled.

He chuckled low in his throat. So close together, Harry could feel his laugh in his chest.

"I could do this all afternoon,

He was going to go mad if Blaise kept up these shenanigans.

Harry managed to push him off, startling Blaise, and turned to face him. There was a slight frown on his lover's face, but Harry ignored it to make his way to their bed. He could hear Blaise's hands immediately moving to cover his long cock, stroking it, and letting the sounds of the lubricant he'd coated it in make obscene sounds as a strange counterpoint to his quick paces away.

"Coming?"

Muscles rippled underneath Blaise's dark skin as he quickly approached, a hand still toying with his cock. The lustful promise on his face, depicted in his deep smirk and bright eyes, immediately rescued Harry's slowly flagging cock.

"In more ways than one," he said with an insistent look between his cock and Harry.

Blaise sank on the bed on his knees before him, cock waving to-and-fro as he shuffled towards Harry. Beating the urge to let Blaise stay on top again, Harry gently pushed him to the side. Blaise acquiesced with a sigh and placed his hands on Harry's hips. Bracing his hands on the dark-skinned man's chest, he slid onto Blaise's thighs with a smirk.

"I'm on top," he confirmed dryly as if Blaise were unaware.

Blaise rolled his eyes and adjusted them, lining them up to continue what Harry had so rudely interrupted.

Harry sank onto his cock quickly, moaning loudly when Blaise held him fast against his crotch. Harry began to ride him, quickly and with force. Blaise's teeth grit themselves fiercely as he vigorously returned Harry's energetic motions.

Eventually, they ended up chest to chest and mouth to mouth. Blaise's knees had risen to provide him with leverage to really meet Harry's movements.

"Fuck… Harry," Blaise whined in his ear, struggling to catch his breath between the deep kisses and their fast pace.

He sounded at the end of his rope, vulnerable and so beautiful, and Harry imagined he sounded the same. His throat felt ragged.

It was only seconds before Blaise came in strong spurts inside of him. It made him gasp, finding some reserve of energy to involuntarily roll his hips once more in encore. He could feel the tightness of Blaise's grip on his hips marking deep half-crescents.

A couple of idle strokes from Blaise's talented hands and Harry came with Blaise's name on his lips all over the rich brown of his abdominals.

They breathed quietly together as Blaise's cock slowly softened inside his ass. Blaise reached over for his wand after gently pulling out of Harry. The cum on Blaise's stomach disappeared with a silent wave and Harry rolled beside Blaise with a hiss at the resounding ache in his ass.

Harry leaned over to give him a final kiss, admiring the lazy hoodedness to Blaise's eyes.

"Sinistra needs me to cover a class tonight," Blaise said with a sigh. He licked his lips slowly, scouring them of all traces of Harry's saliva.

Harry swallowed audibly.

"No luck with the Healers?" He managed to say in response.

Blaise rubbed his cheek worriedly, his tongue still driving Harry insane.

"The nerve damage from the Lestrange's Cruciatus is fading, but full function won't be a guarantee for at least half a year."

Harry's jaw clenched sympathetically, but his face quickly smoothed at the feel of one of Blaise's long-fingered hands rubbing soothing circles against his hip. It helped that the perpetrator was dead, under Mrs Weasley's wand of all things.

"Don't worry," Blaise assured. "She'll be fine, and I'll just take a nap before my midnight babysitting of her second year Hufflepuff brats."

Blaise's arm snaked around his waist.

"Stay with me?" Blaise asked.

There was a quiet expectation in his voice, and Harry couldn't really think of a reason to say no.

"Of course," Harry said.

Harry slid under the covers into the welcoming heat of his lover. Blaise's arm around his waist became vicelike, and he settled into the pillow next to Harry with a relaxed smile on his face. Harry absently admired Blaise: dark skin satin smooth against his own; pretty features, cheekbones tall and prominent, almond brown eyes (incredibly expressive when Blaise let them); and his developed physique. The best, Harry thought, was the content smile on his face, straight white teeth peeking out between his slightly parted lips.

"Keep looking at me like that and we'll be getting reacquainted with that wall," Blaise murmured.

"As if you need me for that," Harry muttered.

Blaise winked at him before he stroked the curve of Harry's ass teasingly.

"Potrei guardarti tutto il giorno."

He kissed Harry, slow and sweet.

"Non riesco a immaginare una vita senza di te."

He kissed him again, a soft moan escaping the two of them as their tongues met.

"Sei il mio cuore," Blaise he finished with an intense gaze into Harry's eyes, hands still cupping his face.

Blaise speaking to Harry in Italian was always a source of surprise, particularly the low huskiness he liked to put in his voice. It never failed to make Harry's heart flutter and butterflies to make their presence known in his stomach.

"I understood my heart, cuore mio, and immaginare una vita, imagine a life, right?"

Harry choked in surprise as Blaise pulled him into a spooning position with a pleased hum. He'd expected a biting comment on his pronunciation and the rest of the words he'd glossed over. Part of Harry wanted to ask Blaise what the rest meant, but there was something special in the mystery.

"Learn more Italian, but yes. Close enough," Blaise said with a soft squeeze.

Blaise was taller than him, at most by an inch or two, but with how frequently he liked to be the big spoon, you'd think the height difference was mammoth. Harry sighed, exasperated, trying weakly to reach for Blaise's wand on the bedside table to vanish the imminent mess, but really there was nowhere else he'd rather be than here in Blaise's arms. Besides, when Blaise's cum leaked out of him, it'd be his problem as well as Harry's. He didn't do petty behaviour quite as well as Blaise, but he was learning.

"I'm fucking you next time," Harry murmured in the cradle of Blaise's arms.

Blaise hummed noncommittedly before pressing a soft kiss against the nape of Harry's neck.

"We'll see. Happy Valentine's," he said, voice muffled with his lips pressed firmly against Harry's skin.

It wasn't what he was expecting. His time with Cho had given him images of chocolates, romantic dates in gaudy teashops, and he'd never experienced a Valentine's with Ginny. But with Blaise, he found that a quiet night in bed together after some great sex was perfectly satisfactory. Great even.

"Happy Valentine's."

* * *

 _"Potrei guardarti tutto il giorno."_ \- I could watch you all day.  
 _"Non riesco a immaginare una vita senza di te."_ \- I can not imagine a life without you.  
 _"Sei il mio cuore."_ \- You're my heart.


	3. luck is not chance, it's toil (1)

Rating: E

AU Half-Blood Prince & Deathly Hallows

Summary: There is a period of 'coming down' when Felix Felicis wears off. During this time, the user's sense of confidence fades, and unlucky circumstances can quickly catch up to them if they are not vigilant. It is unclear whether Felix wearing off actually increases the user's bad luck in a small overbalancing period (though obviously not so great as to undo whatever they have just accomplished), or whether the user simply keenly perceives the return of 'ordinary' levels of luck and all the subsequent challenges and dangers. - _Zygmunt Fudge_

Sometimes, seemingly inconsequential events can have massive ramifications.

* * *

Multiple Horcruxes.

Harry contemplated the concept as he left Dumbledore's office. The weak light of dawn was creeping through the windows. Harry headed towards the Common Room in a half-jog, desperate to tell Hermione and Ron of the events of the night. The impossibility of the task set ahead of them was daunting. The high of Felix felicis had long faded in the wake of the revelations he'd seen in the Pensieve. Thinking of Voldemort's undisguised want only served to reinforce the reminder that he'd split his soul. Multiple times. Their containers could be _anywhere_.

 _We're not so different you and I. Half-bloods –_

Harry aborted that train of thought and turned towards the staircase with a shake of his head. It was with those dark thoughts in mind he didn't see the person descending the staircase. He made out a pair of slanted dark eyes and dark skin. Zabini, he noted to himself before everything fell apart.

Harry would look back at the coming chain of events as nothing but a comedy of errors. What should have been a simple collision became disastrous in the blink of an eye. A beaded braid (and when did Zabini have hair like Angelina used to?) somehow slipped between his glasses to whip his right eye, blinding him in a sharp jolt of pain that had Harry pushing Zabini away in reflex. The odd two-step Harry did to move off the Slytherin's cloak was almost funny until Zabini vaulted over the banister with a whoosh of fabric, leaving his cloak to pool at Harry's feet.

Harry didn't even think. He vaulted over the banister, already drawing his wand. Harry's mind raced with the same hyper-alertness that had gotten him through years of continual brushes with danger.

" _Accio_!"

Zabini rose upwards, a look of surprise crossing his face at the sight of Harry falling towards him.

" _Wingardium levi – osa_!"

What would have been a masterstroke failed as Blaise's head collided with his wand hand, and the spell that would have been their salvation became a bolt of light flying skyward. Cursing under his breath, Harry fought to secure his grip on his wand. He used his idle arm to secure Zabini to him with a haphazard grip around the Slytherin's back. As they fell closer and closer to the unforgiving ground, Harry heard above them the rumbling crash of a suit of armour falling off its plinth. It resounded throughout the castle with a cataclysmic racket.

With his grip secured on his wand, he attempted again to cast a Levitation Charm, but Zabini rotated in his grip with enough force to wind Harry. It threw him off again, and there was a dull thunk as a painting fell off its perch to his right. As Zabini's arm wrapped around Harry's waist and elbow, he heard a screamed 'Hey!' from the painting's inhabitant. With a sinuous sleight of hand that involved a painful looking contortion of his torso, Zabini managed to pull his wand out and silently conjure something several feet beneath them.

" _Spongify_ ," he heard Zabini hiss before his grip around Harry became vice-like, making any further wand movements impossible.

Harry landed on top of Zabini, feeling his glasses catapult off his face with the impact, but his right leg missed the soft, bouncy landing that Zabini had conjured in his haste. A sickening crack resounded through the chaos of their laboured breathing. All the while, Zabini hissed against his cheek in a constant stream of frantic Italian. A scream bubbled in his throat at the ensuing agony, but before he could even voice it, everything went black.

Harry regained consciousness in the Hospital Wing. It had become such a constant in his stay at Hogwarts that he was comfortable with the situation. At least he wasn't dead. He groped for the bedside table, hoping to find his glasses and finding his wand instead.

"Where are my glasses?" He murmured.

"I have no idea," came the familiar voice of Madam Pomfrey.

Harry finally opened his eyes, sighing. Surveying his surroundings, he accepted the blurry sight of weathered stone with a grimace. Pomfrey walked towards him with her lips in a thin line.

"You fell from the second floor of the Grand Staircase to the ground floor. You have a shattered kneecap and a broken femur, snapped where it meets the pelvic bone and near pulverised almost everywhere else. I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to move," Madam Pomfrey said with a sniff. "The pain you're feeling now is the Skele-Gro at work."

Harry groaned. He'd swore to himself in second year he'd never experience that again. Now that he was more lucid, he took note of the fact that the pain radiating from where his pelvis met his thigh was agonising. Every intake of breath was a harsh whistle through his teeth. Harry barely suppressed a whimper at the excruciating ache in his knee when he pushed himself upright.

A hand guided him back down onto the bed. Even with his blurry vision, he could make out Pomfrey giving him an admonishing shake of her head. He was in too much agony to even question who'd pushed him back down onto the bed. He hoped it was Ron or Hermione. Or Ginny.

"Don't be stubborn. Lie down and keep your leg straight, Mr. Potter," she ordered with a sympathetic wince.

"It hurts," he groaned.

His stomach lurched at the unbearable agony that ensued when he lay flat in his bed once more.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

Pomfrey conjured a bucket with a quick flick of her wand.

There was a delicate wrinkle of her nose when Harry finished, but she vanished the vomit and bucket without a word. She leant in close and placed a wet cloth on his forehead with a gentle pat.

"I can't promise this won't get any more painful, Potter. I preserved what little that was intact of your femoral shaft in your right leg and vanished the rest. If it becomes too much, I could vanish all the bones in your right leg, but you'd be in the Hospital Wing for maybe another two days – "

"And this?" Harry muttered.

"Your femur and kneecap should be done by the end of dinner," she said with the air of someone pleased to be delivering good news. "Three hours from now."

Harry sighed in relief. He'd mentally prepared himself for a lengthy stay.

"You slept through the worst of it. Mr Zabini did a good job of keeping your femoral fracture aligned on the way here."

Harry felt sick all over again at the thought of having to align someone's snapped bone.

"And Zabini?" Harry croaked, looking around for the Slytherin.

Focusing his mediocre vision as best as he could, he could make out Zabini's frame in the chair beside his bed. The Slytherin gave him a nod.

"Bruised shoulder and mild shock, but I'm fine otherwise," Zabini said in his familiar Londoner drawl. Harry could recognise the sleepy slur to his voice to be the influence of a Calming Draught.

"He brought you to the Hospital Wing, Mr Potter. It was not a pretty sight," Pomfrey added. "If you need anything else, I'll be in my office."

She handed a blue glass bottle to Zabini with a nod before she walked away briskly, leaving Harry and Zabini in a strange silence.

"You saved my life, Potter," Zabini murmured as soon as the door to Pomfrey's office closed with a click. "Without that accio, I wouldn't have had enough time to conjure that cushion.

"You would have conjured that without me," Harry ground out.

Zabini looked disbelieving, but he said nothing. He gave Harry's leg a pointed look. "I should have made it bigger, but I was panicking somewhat."

Harry nodded, a weak grin crossing his face at Zabini's self-chastising sarcasm. He wasn't upset about that; at least they'd survived more or less intact.

"Panicking a lot actually," he admitted after a slight pause. "If you hadn't grabbed me I'd have likely plummeted to my death without doing a thing."

His voice trembled. "I was terrified."

Harry was sympathetic. Unfortunately, he didn't feel properly equipped right now, with the unbearable pain and all, to properly console a Slytherin. The only reason Zabini wasn't breaking down was likely the Calming Draught he'd been forced to take.

"If I hadn't bumped into you, this wouldn't have happened," Harry said.

He was already dreading the reaction when people found out he'd almost killed someone.

"That's true," Zabini admitted, his voice approaching his usual calm baritone.

He even managed a weak smirk. "The day I try something different with my hair is the day it almost gets me killed," he remarked dryly. The Slytherin's fingers toyed with the hair that gathered around his shoulders.

Harry eyed the beads in Zabini's braided hair with more than a little annoyance.

"Where are my glasses?"

"I was too busy taking you to the Hospital Wing to recover them. They looked beyond redemption before anyway. With all that Spello-tape… how many reparos have you used, Potter?"

Harry sighed. "Enough."

"With that in mind," Zabini said, his gaze fixed on the bottle in his hand, "whilst you were out, I gave Madam Pomfrey the gold to acquire an Opia Rectification Remedy. It's guaranteed to, according to the label, 'improve the vision of those with visual defects at least threefold with no side effects'."

"How expensive was it?"

Zabini hummed under his breath. "Two thousand, three hundred and eighteen galleons? About that."

Zabini ignored Harry's sudden gasp with a shrug of his shoulders. It may have seemed like a dismissible amount of gold to Zabini, but Harry was sure that that cost more than his Firebolt. Maybe even two.

"You had that amount of gold on hand?" Harry gasped.

Zabini snorted. "The adult variant is more expensive, and it doesn't help that the potioneer who invented it still holds a monopoly over its production. No one else knows how to make it," he explained, ignoring Harry's question.

Harry sunk into his pillow, still shocked and trying to comprehend the amount of gold that Zabini had spent on a whim.

"And Pomfrey agreed so readily to this?"

"Well, she only caved in when I offered to buy enough to keep some on hand for other students who wanted to correct their eyesight," Zabini admitted.

Harry was initially awed at the idea of Zabini, infamous amongst their year for his snobbery and disdain for nearly everyone, giving up so much money to other students just to pay Harry back, but the tie around his neck immediately had his hackles up.

"Is this how you view this, Zabini? Like a transaction? Are you going buy me out?" Harry asked, bewildered and with the beginnings of anger building in his stomach.

Zabini smiled, appearing pleased that Harry had come to that conclusion.

"Well… yes, in a way. I owe you a life debt now after your suicidal heroism," Zabini said.

Zabini's smile became lopsided, though there was clear disbelief in his tone. "It's almost like you can't believe that I'm grateful. It's not everyday a Gryffindor decides to put his life on the line to save a Slytherin… particularly given that we haven't said a word to each other before."

"So this is a way to get rid of the debt?"

Zabini's eyes rolled. "You really know nothing about life debts, do you? I can't repay a life debt by doing something so convenient like using my mother's money to fix your poor eyesight."

Harry recalled Dumbledore's words in first year about Snape. He'd saved Harry's life when Quirrell had cursed his broom, thus removing his life debt to Harry's father.

"You would have to save my life in return?"

Zabini nodded, though the easiness of his smile faded.

"You understand what my life involves, Zabini? Voldemort?"

Zabini swallowed audibly at the name, yet his expression grew contemplative rather than afraid. Harry thought he could come to like the Slytherin, purely out of that reaction. It was a simplistic way of judging character, but Harry had noticed how Zabini had not brought any attention to how his own quick spell work had saved them both. It further framed the Slytherin into a better light for him. Despite that, there was something strange about how _everything_ Harry had tried had gone wrong earlier.

"Almost dying like that in such a silly way makes you realise how… fragile life really is," he said with a serious look at Harry. "As I said before, you have no reason to like me."

Harry remembered what he'd heard Zabini say about Ginny and his lips thinned. Zabini laughed lowly at his reaction.

"Yeah… despite whatever misgivings you have of me, whatever you may have heard about me," he looked at the green and silver of his own tie, "of my house, you didn't hesitate. If you'd landed with say your head outside of the cushion, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?"

'You'd be dead' was the silent message Zabini was trying to tell him. Perhaps something in Harry was warped by Zabini's standards, who still clearly couldn't quite comprehend the idea of Harry endangering his own life to save him, but Harry felt certain that he'd have done the same even for Malfoy. Hermione did always say he had a thing for saving people. He believed if saving someone is within his power, then there was no reason not to at least try.

"Perhaps," Harry said with an uneasy laugh.

Zabini nodded, still sombre. "I didn't get sorted into Slytherin due to ambition. Cunning, self-serving, arrogance, and shrewdness. Those are what made the hat put me there instead of Ravenclaw. And here you are, Potter, an antithesis to that."

It sounded a lot like a laundry list of character flaws to Harry, but he didn't voice that thought and nodded him on. In his largely Gryffindor perception of the world, it was almost like a compliment to be considered the opposite of cunning, self-serving, arrogance, and shrewdness. Though he couldn't deny that cunning and shrewdness had their place. He'd almost been sorted into Slytherin after all.

"All my life I'd just expected to leave Hogwarts, work for a bit, and then spend the rest of my life doing whatever I wanted with my inheritance, but as I said… life is fragile. You showed me that. I could have died today and what would I be remembered for? Being the son of a famously reclusive, wealthy witch with seven dead husbands? Who would even miss me apart from family? I'm sure you didn't even know my name until this year."

There was a light to his dark eyes now, a sort of desperation as he looked to Harry, searching for confirmation of whatever epiphany their near-death experience had brought him. Harry thought of Zabini at Slug Club, cold and unfeeling compared to the emotional teen before him.

"How do you just thrust yourself into danger like that? I don't even understand it. I... I'm not _that_ important," Zabini cried, his hair shaking to-and-fro with a gentle tinkling, forming a strange juxtaposition with the sudden energy he'd found. "Aren't you prophesied to defeat the Dark Lord? What if you'd died?"

Harry just looked at the dark-skinned teen across him. Amusement was what first came to mind. The fact that Zabini still couldn't comprehend that Harry did it because it was the right thing to do was both funny and disturbing.

"It was the right thing to do," he repeated.

"Right thing to do," Zabini muttered, a disdainful expression on his face. He was not convinced.

Harry nodded, putting as much finality into the motion as he could. Zabini sighed before relaxing back into his chair with an almost frantic rub of his face.

"It's that type of thinking. That mindlessly noble, _Gryffindor_ sentiment which is why I'm not too bothered about owing you a life debt, Potter. As terrifying as the experience was, it has given me a wakeup call."

He nodded to himself, almost as if he needed to convince himself.

"Are you looking for me to provide your life with direction, Zabini?" Harry asked.

Zabini looked like he had been hit with a Stinging Hex, lips slackening to release a brief gasp, but he recovered. As if to cover up his slip, he shrugged and gave Harry a smile that didn't meet his eyes. Cataloging this, Harry felt it was the closest he'd get to a yes to that question but exercised some wisdom and kept silent.

"You know what they say about life debts, Potter?"

Harry sighed. "What?"

"'Dishonour a life debt and one might wish they'd lost their head'?

"Really?"

There was dawning horror in Harry's mind. Was this a form of magical servitude?

Zabini lifted the bottle that Pomfrey had given him closer to Harry. It was made of ornate blue glass, covered in intricate little engravings of pairs of glasses with deep depressions running through them.

"No. I just made that up," Zabini said deadpan. There was a tiny smirk on his full lips, "but seriously, life debts are powerful magic. I could conspire all I want to harm you, which I _don't_ , and through mysterious twists of fate, I'd end up obliged to pay you in full."

"It's old magic," Zabini said. "Magic that I don't intend to ignore."

"I understand," Harry said, not understanding at all.

Zabini's ensuing smirk was indulgent as if Harry were a toddler who'd yet to master walking. "I don't know how I'll make you believe that I'm truly grateful, and not doing this out of obligation, but I suppose I'll have to show you."

He pulled the eyedropper out of the vial with a significant arch of an eyebrow.

"This will be a good start, I think," he remarked.

"Go ahead," Harry said.

There was an undercurrent of excitement in Harry. He'd never considered searching for magical solutions for his eyesight. It hadn't really been a significant problem. As Zabini approached him, Harry admitted that there was an allure in being able to see without them. The idea of playing Quidditch without having to apply Sticking and Impervius Charms made him giddy.

"It will tingle for a second," Zabini warned as he leaned over with the eyedropper in hand.

A dull numbness crept over Harry's eyes after each eye received a drop. Without warning, his vision blurred further as if he were seeing through an opaque film. An edge of panic overcame Harry as the tingling started, and with it came the sudden realization that he had been foolish to trust Zabini.

"I can't – Merlin!" Harry breathed.

The sudden clearing of his vision made Harry choke. He'd known that his prescription had been out of date for years, but the difference in the quality of his vision now was incredible. He rubbed his eyes, almost convinced for a second that he was dreaming. The unnatural clarity of his persisted when he opened his eyes anew.

He looked to Zabini, taking note of how he could see the individual stitches of Zabini's grey sweater.

"Thanks…" Harry said. He couldn't think of a way to thank Zabini that could ever articulate how grateful he was.

"You're welcome, Potter."

Zabini nodded with a pleased curl of his lips. "You have nice eyes," he added in a pleasant tone. "I hope you're ready for the school's reaction to the Chosen One's _brilliantly_ green eyes. Without those horrible glasses of yours, they'll be even more of an attraction."

Harry could feel himself blanch at the idea. He only managed a weak glare at Zabini.

"And now I've found the thing that terrifies Potter. You had everyone convinced it was Dementors, but it was public attention all along," Zabini said with a laugh.

"Shut up, Zabini," Harry said, still taking in every inch of the Hospital Wing with his improved eyesight.

"Call me Blaise," he said with a challenging lift of an eyebrow. "Saving my life confers upon you at least that honour."

"Honour?"

"Well, we can at least say that the eyedrops didn't have any adverse effects on your hearing, Potter."

Harry snorted.

"Did any staff come?" Harry asked, wondering why McGonagall hadn't made an appearance.

"Slughorn and McGonagall came whilst you were unconscious, not even ten minutes after I'd brought you here. I told them what happened; Slughorn had looked horrified for the whole thing, probably at the prospect of losing his prized brewer. McGonagall had been simply concerned. I imagine her reaction would have been worse if she'd been here while Pomfrey had been cleaning up your leg like Slughorn had."

Blaise used the word cleaning as if it were a euphemism.

"Cleaned up my leg?" Harry prodded.

Blaise gave him an awkward squirm, entirely out of character, and Harry's suspicions grew. "She'd understated the state of your leg, believe it or not," he said grimacing with each word he said.

"That bad?"

Blaise gave him a flat stare.

"Alright, alright! My friends?"

"They were here just before breakfast. McGonagall must have told them," Blaise said with an absent shrug.

"Did they say anything?"

"Well, they didn't say anything _to me._ I was asleep when they came; Pomfrey told me in case you woke up whilst she was at breakfast."

Harry was quite offended at the idea of Pomfrey being so familiar with his visits that she planned solutions to his concerns.

"I saw them at lunch. They looked worried as you can imagine," Blaise said in response to his silence.

"Did you go to class?"

"Well, Potions started about two hours ago, and Pomfrey said I shouldn't go. Brewing whilst under the influence of a Calming Draught would be a disaster in the making."

"Really?" He asked, disbelieving.

He remembered Hannah spending the entirety of the exam season on Calming Draughts in fifth year.

"Well, Dreamless Sleep Potion and Calming Draught in combination were a disaster in the making when brewing," Blaise admitted.

His face turned from Harry in what could only be shame, and Harry finally understood what he'd meant when he'd said it was bad – bad enough to cause nightmares. Still running high off the adrenaline, having handled Harry's leg whilst bringing him to the Hospital Wing, and then watching Pomfrey put together what Harry concluded had been a disturbing sight. It had to have taken its toll.

"You saved my life as well, you know. No need to be ashamed about having nightmares," Harry said.

"I know. Pomfrey said the same thing."

Drawing from his own experience with nightmares: Quirrell, the Basilisk, the Dementors, Cedric, Sirius…. Voldemort.

"Time is the best healer, Blaise. Nightmares they'll come, and they'll go," Harry said.

Silence descended upon them, but Blaise put a quick stop to it by getting to his feet after looking at his watch.

"I'm going to go to Charms," Blaise said with a dull tone before sighing. "The questions will be irritating."

Harry smiled. It wasn't him which was all that mattered.

The tall Slytherin paused at the foot of his bed, seeming to be on the verge of shuffling his feet. "Thank you," he muttered.

Harry waved him off, grinning despite the burning of his leg. "As I said, it was the right thing. Cheers for the eyesight. I'll make sure to thank you when we win the Quidditch Cup."

Zabini grimaced, seeming to remember that he was a Chaser for the Slytherin team.

"What Malfoy and Urquhart don't know won't hurt them. Or me," Blaise said as if to convince himself.

Harry frowned at him, torn between guilt and realization of the awkward position that Blaise was now in. "You'll be alright?"

Blaise squinted at him as if he made little sense. "I will be." Whatever he was looking for, he must have found it as he nodded to himself. "I'm on your side now, Potter," Blaise said, deadly serious. "If there's anything you need, just let me know."

Harry nodded, already thinking of the possibilities of getting to the bottom of what Malfoy was up to. It would be a lot easier with someone associated with him on his side.

"We'll see," Harry simply said.

He watched Blaise walk out of the Hospital Wing, deep in thought.

* * *

"Oi, Harry!"

"Ron! He's sleeping," Hermione berated him with a huff.

A lazy smile crossed Harry's face at the sound of his best friends approaching his bed. He'd been dozing on and off for the last hour or two.

"See! He's awake," Ron exclaimed.

Harry could hear Hermione's eye roll. "You woke him up by being loud," she retorted.

Harry sensing unending bickering about to begin interjected. "She's right, you know?"

"Sorry mate," Ron said, a faint blush crossing his face. "Are you alright?"

Harry moved his leg, wincing at the faint sharp pain of the Skele-Gro finishing up. Pomfrey said it would be finished any moment now.

"Never better."

"I'm glad you're okay, Harry. The rumours around the school have been worrying," Hermione said with an earnest squeeze of his shoulder.

"Rumours?"

Ron and Hermione exchanged looks.

"Well, Harry. Some have been saying Zabini, that arrogant git in Slughorn's Club, had tried to duel you on the second-floor staircase. At breakfast, Romilda Vane's convinced you'd used a spell that Dumbledore had personally taught you to cause an earthquake to defeat Zabini," Ron said.

"An earthquake?" Harry asked, already dreading the answer.

"Well, something incredibly loud woke up all the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins this morning," Hermione added.

Harry knew that the Hufflepuff common room was in the basement and the Slytherins weren't too far away in the dungeons, and he cringed remembering his mishap with the suit of armour.

They shared another look at his reaction.

"One of the paintings, an oil of a medieval Belgian landed noble, has been telling everyone that would listen that at the height of your duel, the raw magic flowing around the corridor had been enough to knock his painting from its place. Only his, as well," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes. "He'd never seen such a display of valour from young wizards since the days of the chevalier errant."

Ron chuckled heartily, and Harry followed in a weak mimicry. To think that the painting had fabricated such lies to impress children was hilarious.

"Don't forget the best bit, Hermione. He seemed convinced that 'at the height of your valour, you'd both taken your duel to the sky, falling and flinging spells at each other all the while."

"A très magnifique display," Ron imitated rather horribly going by Hermione's ensuing giggle.

"Well, that part of his story is actually the most truthful," Harry said.

Harry almost wished the rest of it was true as it made him sound far more impressive than he felt.

"Well, I'd just delivered Slughorn's memory to Dumbledore," Harry began in answer to the questioning gazes on their faces.

Hermione smiled, and Ron jolted in his seat to attention.

"Blimey," Ron murmured, "to think that all you needed was to use that potion months ago."

"Don't remind me," Harry snarked back. "We'll talk about _that_ in private."

He continued with his explanation, outlining that he was distracted following his talk with Dumbledore.

"And then, everything went horribly, laughably wrong," Harry said with a disbelieving chuckle. "I bumped into Zabini on the Grand Staircase."

"Think he was with Malfoy, Harry?" Ron asked.

"I have no idea," Harry said.

"He was likely coming from Astronomy," Hermione corrected. "Terry told me in Arithmancy this morning. They share the class."

"Like you believe that he was just coming from Astronomy," Ron said with a snort.

Hermione gave Ron a particularly scathing glare that Ron simply smirked at. Harry lamented over the idea of them ever getting together. They seemed to be forever stuck at the hair-pulling stage, yet they were friendlier now than they'd been in a long while. Harry half-hoped that his stint in the Hospital Wing had knocked some sense into them.

"And then you duelled?" Ron asked.

"Well, no. It was… stupid. We just jostled into each other for a couple of moments and then suddenly Zabini had fallen over the banister," Harry said.

"And you saved him by jumping after him," Hermione responded with a certainty that made Harry sigh.

"You could have died," Ron muttered aghast.

"Well, I couldn't let him die for something that was mostly my fault," Harry retorted.

Before Ron could say anything else, Harry shook his head, seeking to put an end to this now. There was no use hand-wringing about what had been done. It was ironic that Ron, someone that Blaise would call a blood traitor, was so quick to identify with the Slytherin's viewpoint.

"I Summoned him to me and grabbed him. Then I kept on trying to use a Levitation Charm but every time I managed to point at us with my wand, Zabini moved in a way that my aim was off."

Ron laughed, and Hermione's gaze grew more thoughtful by the second.

"That earthquake was a suit of armour, I'm guessing," Ron said. "Ernie had described it as a rumbling crash that echoed on and on."

"And Sir Lies-a-lot was just levitated off his perch," Harry added.

"And none of the staircases realigned to catch you?" Hermione questioned.

"They do that?" Ron asked.

Hermione sniffed delicately. "I keep on telling you to read _Hogwarts: A History_ , don't I? Helga Hufflepuff enchanted the Grand Staircase, Ravenclaw's creation, so that the staircase on the level immediately beneath the student would immediately move to catch a falling student – better broken bones than death, after all."

"Well, they didn't do that this time," Harry muttered.

There was a little disturbed silence at that revelation.

"Anyway," Harry said, "we'd probably have both died if Zabini hadn't managed to conjure a cushion in time. I wasn't as lucky and ended up with my right leg landing on the stone. Shattered and snapped from Pomfrey's explanation."

Ron cringed.

"That's an awful lot of bad luck, Harry."

Hermione leapt out of her seat with a grin.

"Ron, you're a genius!"

"I am?" Ron asked, and a brilliant smile crossed his face, "I am. Repeat that for me, Hermione."

Hermione grew animated, dismissive or unaware of both Ron and Harry's laughter.

"Felix felicis has a coming down period, Harry. It's said that following such extraordinary luck, the return to normality can result in the taker being profoundly unlucky. I think that's what happened to you."

"Seems plausible," Harry agreed. "It's worn off by now."

"Hopefully," Ron said. "Wouldn't want another accident."

Hermione nodded before sitting back down with a sigh.

"Where are your glasses?" Ron asked.

"Well, you can thank Zabini for that," Harry said with a wide grin.

"You seem oddly happy about that," Ron said, disbelieving.

Hermione's lips pursed in thought as she looked at Harry's eyes.

"You're not squinting, Harry. Did Madam Pomfrey fix your eyesight?" Hermione asked.

Harry was cagey, not knowing how to broach this subject, but he shook his head. Blaise deserved the credit.

"Zabini?" She asked.

He nodded slowly, and Ron and Hermione's ensuing questions were in unison.

"What?"

"How?

"He bought an… Opia Rectification Remedy for me and enough to cure visual abnormalities for nine other students," Harry recited, remembering what Pomfrey had told him after Blaise had left.

Hermione was still confused, but Ron's mouth gaped wide open.

"Bill used to wear glasses, you know? He ended up taking that Remedy when he became a Curse-Breaker. He got it through the Goblins, so it was at a discount I imagine, but he said it was worth almost three months' worth of pay."

Ron sucked in a great gout of breath, still shocked.

"What did you do to do that Slytherin? He's obviously… rich, but that must have been at least a couple hundred galleons, Harry."

"About two thousand," Harry said with a cringe.

"Two Triwizards," Ron whispered. "Two whole Triwizards."

They fell into a heavy silence.

"He saved his life," Hermione said in the sharp silence. "That's about fifty thousand pounds if what you say is right Harry."

"He did say he owes me a life debt," Harry added.

"Well, I like it you have – " Hermione began.

"My mother's eyes," Harry completed with an eye roll.

"I was going to say nice eyes, Harry, but alright," Hermione said with a laugh.

Ron nodded, but his eyes still gazed into nothing. He was without a doubt stuck on the galleons part of Harry's story.

"Well, fixing your eyesight doesn't exactly fix a life debt," Ron said with an incredulous laugh. "Merlin, he really means it, doesn't he?"

"What do you mean by that?" Harry asked.

Hermione bit her lip.

"Parkinson was pestering him at lunch, for details about what happened this morning, and he just blew her off. Malfoy tried as well, but Zabini didn't even look at him. He hasn't told _anyone_ what happened. In fact, I don't think I've seen him speak to anyone today," Hermione explained.

Ron snorted.

"Yeah, he gave us that blank look he always has when we approached him in Charms."

"Not a word at all," Hermione said with a nod. "Now that you've explained what happened it makes sense."

Ron and Hermione shared a dark look.

"Can't imagine a Slytherin would want to be known to have a life debt to Harry," Ron explained.

Harry felt like an idiot at that fact. He'd never considered beyond Blaise's role in his new, improved eyesight. What would happen to the Slytherin if it became public knowledge he held a life debt to Harry? Admiration almost swelled within Harry at the fact that Blaise had so readily committed himself to fulfilling his debt, but he was still a tad suspicious.

"Of course," Hermione said.

Whatever else Hermione wanted to say was interrupted by the door to Pomfrey's office opening. Harry fell back into his bed doing his best to look restful, eyes closed and features lax.

"Mr Potter, you're still here? You're still in pain?" Pomfrey asked. Her voice grew louder as she approached his bed.

Harry realised that he hadn't felt any pain for the last fifteen minutes and slid out of his bed, both legs functioning perfectly, with a curse.

"Language," Hermione muttered.

Harry ignored that and stretched. Ron and Hermione rose to their feet after him.

"No?" He hedged, half-asking in fear Pomfrey would change her mind about letting him go.

Pomfrey nodded at Ron and Hermione in greeting.

"Good. Your eyesight perfectly functional?"

"Better than I could have imagined," Harry said, feeling giddy at just the thought of his vision.

Pomfrey gave him a thin smile.

"Now, let's _all_ go to dinner. It starts in a couple of minutes, and I don't want to see you here for at least a month. Any of you," she declared, walking towards the Hospital Wing exit with a beckoning gesture.

"Only a month?" Harry said under his breath.

"You're accident prone, Mr Potter!" Pomfrey called. "Come on, hurry up."

They shadowed her towards the Great Hall, ignoring the murmurs and sudden silences from their fellow students at the sight of Harry. Ron nudged him and leaned in.

"You given any thought on how you're going to handle this?"

"Well, the idea of pulling a Zabini is very enticing," Harry said with a smirk.

"You don't owe anyone an explanation, considering Zabini isn't volunteering anything," Hermione murmured.

"Not even Professor McGonagall?" Ron teased.

Hermione huffed.

"She already knows," she retorted.

"Right," Ron said lamely.

They came to the threshold of the Great Hall, already buzzing with lively conversation and the tinkling of cutlery. No one inside had yet taken notice of them, though with the frequent flow of students into the Hall eyeing them, it was only a matter of time.

"Well," Harry said brightly with a confidence he didn't feel. "Here goes nothing."

"Come on, Harry. You've faced You-Know-How how many times? Hogwarts can't be that bad," Ron said.

"I don't live with Voldemort," Harry snarked back.

Ron laughed, and Hermione shook her head with a smile.

"Fair enough," he agreed.

"Let's go," Hermione said with a determined stride into the Hall and towards the Gryffindor table.

They followed, quickly catching up and ignoring the sudden silence that followed their progress.

Luna gave him a radiant smile as he passed the Ravenclaw table. Harry returned her smile, though with considerably more restraint, and ignored Cho's sudden look at him with ease as he passed Hufflepuff. Shooting a look out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Luna turning back to her neighbour and talking animatedly about something likely beyond their imagination. Gryffindor grew audibly noisier as he approached, and as Harry took his seat next to Neville, he could feel Malfoy's stare on him. Looking up, easily ignoring the sea of students looking to make eye contact, he found Zabini sat at the far end of the Slytherin table, a gulf in distance between him and where Malfoy was holding court in the middle of the table. He was deep in quiet conversation with two Slytherin girls in their year. Greengrass and Davis, if he remembered correctly.

"Harry! Glad to see you're alright," Neville said with a smile. "No glasses?"

"No glasses," he confirmed.

"Don't think I'll get used to it," Neville said with a chuckle, "but it definitely suits you."

Ginny, sat next to Neville, gave him a fierce grin. Her gaze kept drifting up towards his eyes. It was transparently appreciative and Ron, at Harry's left, coughed pointedly.

"Glad to see you, Harry. We wanted to visit but Pomfrey only let Ron and Hermione in," Ginny said.

She gave a playful glare at her brother who was, like Harry, now taking notice of the fact that Dean was sat several seats away with Seamus. Dean was watching their conversation closely, a dark expression on his face. Harry noted, elated and anxious in equal measure, that it was likely they'd broken up. Going by Ron and Hermione's suddenly regained friendship, it was likely Ron and Lavender had broken up also. It was rather telling now that he thought about it. Lavender hadn't hailed Ron over, instead choosing to continue speaking with Parvati.

"Did Zabini, that poser, do something to you?" Ginny murmured intently.

Harry forced back a cringe around a sip of pumpkin juice. There was a subtle promise in her voice that spoke of Bat-Bogey Hexes and trickery better suited for Fred and George. At his side, Neville was listening with a fork idly moving his mashed potatoes in circles.

"He didn't do anything," Harry said.

Neville nodded, taking Harry at his word, and simply turned back to his food, but Ginny tilted her head in question. Inside, Harry was panicking. How did he frame this without revealing anything potentially compromising? What if Malfoy found out that Zabini was indebted to Harry?

"I'd tell you more, but it's… embarrassing," he said incredibly lamely.

Ron and Hermione were eating silently, likely enjoying Harry's suffering.

"Embarrassing," Ginny repeated.

Harry shrugged.

"You won't tell me anything else?"

Harry shook his head, using the excuse of dishing roast potatoes to avoid making eye contact. Ginny shrugged and continued eating her Shepherd's pie with a faint smile.

"It must be important then," she said calmly.

"Harry!" Colin called across from them and several seats down, his brother grinning frantically over his shoulder.

"It begins," Ron said darkly between chews of his lamb chop.

"You are disgusting," Hermione said flatly, though with none of the heat she'd usually use when addressing Ron's hasty table manners.

Harry desperately looked around for treacle tart and found none. Thankfully, Demelza was sat on Colin's other side.

"Let him eat, Colin," Demelza said with a sympathetic nod at Harry.

Colin visibly deflated but turned back towards his brother.

"Cheers, Demelza," Harry said with such relief he was momentarily embarrassed, "I might consider being easier on you in practice."

Unlike Ron, Demelza had the decency to finish chewing before speaking.

"Better yet, no detentions for the Ravenclaw match, Potter. Not like last year," she ordered before wincing at how forceful she'd sounded.

Harry nodded, hopeful himself. Part of him suspected that the universe would conspire against him. He watched Snape eat, surly as ever, with a beady eye.

"Will do," Harry said with a soft smile.

Demelza nodded back. "That's all I ask," she said with a smile before returning to her food.

Hermione gave him an inscrutable look over Ron's shoulder.

"You're actually promising to avoid trouble, Harry?" She asked, audibly incredulous.

Harry would have sighed but deserts had appeared, and he served himself a slice of treacle tart with a content smile.

"You know me, Hermione. Trouble tends to find me," Harry answered easily.

Harry followed Hermione's ensuing gaze towards Zabini, still in deep conversation with the two Slytherin girls.

"I can't argue with that," Hermione acquiesced.


	4. luck is not chance, it's toil (2)

"Two feet on the effects and potential complications of the Entrail-Expelling Curse and efficacy of the various counter curses discussed today. I want particular focus on the distinction and contrast between its historic medical usage and its modern-day usage in the Dark Arts," Snape recited silkily.

The class groaned in unison. Unlike his classmates, Blaise was raised correctly and settled for an irritated twitch. He hadn't wanted to take Defense but considering current events he'd have been foolish not to. Still, two feet on such a dull topic.

Snape peered up from his desk, looking at the centre of the room. "Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr Weasley."

Like clockwork, the top of Weasley's ears turned an ugly puce colour.

"What for?"

"Unruliness, Mr Weasley," Snape murmured, "an additional five points for a lack of respect, I say."

Parkinson, sat near the front, was looking as if Christmas had come early.

"For those of you looking to be Aurors," Snape said with a sharp look at Potter and Weasley.

"Merlin help us all," Blaise heard Draco mutter snidely.

Crabbe and Goyle guffawed, and Snape didn't even bother to look in their direction.

"It would be prudent for you to hand this in on time and to an above average standard. As difficult as that may be for such… busy students as yourselves, the consequences otherwise… will be severe," Snape murmured to Potter and Weasley, black eyes alight with scorn.

Like the fool he was, Potter met Snape's gaze coolly.

Granger raised her hand. "When is it due, Professor?" Granger asked when Snape made eye contact.

"Next lesson, of course," came Snape's brisk reply, already making it clear he wanted them all out of their sight by the disdainful look as he surveyed them.

Blaise twitched again. He already had three feet due on Friday on Mercury's precession and its effects on rituals and brewing for Astronomy, the Intruder Charm to practice for Charms tomorrow, and a foot on the scalability of Human Transfiguration on Thursday.

"But… our next lesson is tomorrow morning," Thomas breathed, horrified.

Blaise wondered if being in Gryffindor gifted you with an uncanny ability in parroting the obvious.

"Why yes, Mr Thomas. How astute of you," Snape said with audible disdain. "I trust you're familiar with the Hogwarts Library."

Blaise could have wiped a tear from his eyes. Whilst Snape may be a complete eyesore, his mastery of sarcasm was one Blaise aspired to one day.

Snape's voice turned remarkably flat as if he were punishing himself. "One point to Gryffindor in celebration and recognition of Mr Thomas' possibly eidetic memory."

Unable to help himself, Blaise snickered with the rest of Slytherin. The Gryffindors grumbled in confusion at Snape managing to make receiving points seem like a punishment. It was a rare occasion where Blaise felt Snape's behaviour was a bit too much, but he had such frequent moments of brilliance it was hard to feel bad.

The class sat still in the uncomfortable silence, unsure of whether they were dismissed.

"Out," Snape ordered.

With that order came a scramble of motion. No one wanted to be the first to leave the classroom in front of Snape without dismissal. Blaise took his time to put his stuff in order, discreetly watching Potter for an opportunity.

Granger was rubbing Weasley's shoulder, who was no longer doing his best Honeydukes' Bloodpop impersonation. Blaise smiled thinly. Some things never changed, did they? He preyed on Potter's sudden focus on listening to Weasley and Granger and used a quick Switching Spell. The note he'd been writing on and off for the double period disappeared, and Blaise's face contorted in disgust as the parchment Potter had been using to make notes appeared on his desk. It was illegible – chicken scratch. How did anyone even read this? Blaise wasn't a wizard with penmanship of note. He wrote in standard cursive. It wasn't anything special like Daphne and Granger's ornate roundhand or Draco's ostentatious Chancery hand, but Potter's handwriting was diabolical. Blaise considered the possibility of horrifying the Dark Lord to death with Potter's sinister scrawl as he placed Potter's notes in his bag to return later.

Taking his time, stretching and making sure his clothes were in order (of course), Blaise made eye contact with Tracey to his right, receiving a smirk and a wink. He nodded in response, confirming his success. She jumped to her feet, leaving for her next class with a wave and a promise they'd talk later. She had Ancient Runes with Daphne next and Blaise had a double free. He had a lot of homework to do before his meeting with Potter.

* * *

Making his way to the corridor on the fifth floor under Disillusionment, Blaise reflected on the trying days since his little adventure with Potter. The questioning had ceased after the second day of his silence in response to conversation, but it had started anew after Pomfrey, damn her, had revealed that he'd funded the eyesight repair potion that some Muggleborn had taken. Binch-Benchley or something? He had Hufflepuffs randomly thanking him in the halls and Gryffindors being slower to glare at him. It was as mortifying as it was bewildering.

Draco was proving to be a problem. Wherever he'd been for the past school year didn't really concern Blaise, but he seemed to take the sudden events as an omen, showing up in the Common Room and the Astronomy section of the Library (Blaise's favourite haunts) at all sorts of hours to interrogate him. He'd stopped eating during mealtimes. The Kitchens had become his refuge; Draco was a more than competent enough brewer to brew Veritaserum. Threats hadn't started yet, and Blaise knew it was only a matter of time with how stony his silence had been.

Blaise arrived at the portrait to the music practice room far quicker than he'd have liked. Since Umbridge had made it impossible for teachers to give information unrelated to their subject, he hadn't returned. Without Flitwick, the string quartet hadn't been the same, so Blaise had left.

Corelli was sat in his frame, dozing.

Tracey and Daphne appeared as soon as he dismissed his camouflage.

"Charm offensive?" Tracey offered, focused entirely on the conversation ahead of them.

Daphne's face pinched in pain. Blaise was sympathetic. The idea of trying to charm over Gryffindors was repulsive and likely futile.

"They'll see it as insincere," Blaise said, frowning in contemplation. "At least Potter will."

Blaise was still self-conscious about how Potter had cut through his subterfuge and misdirection in the Hospital Wing. He knew with certainty that the Calming Draught had lessened his nerves and loosened his tongue, but it bit at Blaise to know how easily Potter had outright identified his one insecurity.

"Be ourselves then?" Tracey suggested.

Blaise nodded his assent.

"They need to understand that we're people too," Blaise said.

"So, we need to be ourselves, but funny and… stupid," Tracey said, pulling her hair out of its ponytail to hang free. Her brown hair fell to her shoulders, curling at the ends towards her neck.

"I suppose we're literally letting our hair down," Daphne said.

Daphne pouted, or as close to a pout as she could get. It was almost cute.

"I'd always hoped that was a metaphor," she added.

Blaise shook his head, letting his zig-zag braids flick around and the beads to tinkle. "Join us," he said with a smirk, running a hand through his jostling hair.

Sinistra's box braids had been a source of admiration for years and he'd wanted to try something similar for an Astronomy class. It was sentimentality that had made him keep them. They were the catalyst for his change in perspective. It was kind of sad that Blaise could sort his life into two distinct periods – before his hair hit Potter in the eye and afterwards. Regardless, this change in perspective was one that he wasn't yet sure about, but the sense of purpose he'd had in the days since his tumble with Potter had been addictive. It was strange to feel like he was doing something important. He hoped this would work out, and he hoped Potter and his friends would listen to what they had to say.

With a flick of her wrist, Daphne's dirty-blonde hair fell out of its topknot with little fanfare. It cascaded down to her lower ears in a layered bob.

"I hate you, Blaise," she said with a haughty sniff.

Blaise snorted. "I'd be surprised if you didn't."

He would certainly hate himself if this didn't work out.

Potter arrived, alone, not even minutes later. Without his glasses, Blaise found it hard to make eye contact with him. The shade of Potter's eyes was eerie to him, especially against the ivory of his skin. Unsettling in their intensity.

"I received your note, Zabini," he said in greeting.

"And you came alone?" Blaise asked.

Draco had said that Potter had an Invisibility Cloak after his little Muggle brawl with Potter on the train.

"Tell your friends to get out of the Cloak," Tracey said, hand on hip and eager to get started.

Potter narrowed his eyes at Blaise.

"Malfoy has loose lips," Daphne muttered.

"Looser than the connection between Goyle's brain and the rest of his body," Tracey added with a laugh.

A slow smile crept on Potter's face, and an inelegant snort sounded in the mouth of the corridor.

"Ah," Daphne said. "That would be Weasley."

The redhead approached with Granger. Her shoulders held tight and right hand hovering over a pocket. Blaise was glad that at least one of them was suspicious. It lowered the likelihood of them plotting or having made any plans how to interact with them.

"Let us in, Blaise," Tracey said, looking at the ends of the corridor for any approaching students.

He fell into his mother tongue with an involuntary smile. "Good evening, Professor Corelli," Blaise said with a nod.

"Good evening. I'm not a Professor, Zabini. We go through this charade every time," Corelli said, nodding indulgently at him.

"The magic you worked on my bowing technique is worthy of Professorship in my eyes," Blaise said.

"So, you say. I see you have company; we must speak about your viola playing at some point. I pray it hasn't atrophied."

Blaise winced, having not picked up the instrument in weeks.

Corelli laughed, looking around at his company with a curious expression. He smoothed the lapel of his robes. "The password?"

"Follia," Blaise recited with a quick look at the ends of the corridor.

It was an awkward silence as they settled on conjured couches in the rather small practice room. Blaise could recognise Bones' cello tucked in a corner, Li's favoured music stand by his shoulder, and one of the Ravenclaw Patil's hair scrunchies on top of the harpsichord. It didn't seem as if they'd replaced him – perhaps they'd turned into a trio. Instrument playing was rare and violists rarer still. Blaise only had to think of Flitwick conjuring and animating a string orchestra accompaniment to know why. Giving the room one last sweeping glance, Blaise noticed someone hadn't bothered to close the harpsichord's lid. With a frown, Blaise closed it with a flick of his wand.

After a significant look at his friends, Blaise sat back and waited. It would be better to allow the Gryffindors to at least start.

"So, you're the outcasts of our year in Slytherin then?" Weasley asked, breaking the silence.

"I prefer malcontents," Daphne said with a particularly haughty sniff. "You're assuming we want part of Malfoy's ragtag group of esteemed individuals."

Potter and Weasley's faces wrinkled in confusion.

"Too many syllables for you, Potter and Weasley?" Tracey asked with feigned concern.

"No, Davis," Weasley snapped. "I know that Greengrass is from a Sacred Twenty-Eight family. I just thought – "

"That I'm itching to prostrate myself before the Dark Lord?" Daphne asked.

"Sacred Twenty-Eight?" Weasley retorted back.

Blaise sighed at the flintiness of Daphne's gaze.

"Well, yes," Granger admitted with a clumsy shrug. "We have no reason to believe otherwise."

Daphne said nothing in response. Blaise thought it was definitely for the best as Tracey took the opportunity to lighten the mood.

"Insurrectionists," Tracey added in a silky tone, "it makes me feel rebellious."

Naturally, the Gryffindors turned to him, seeking whatever ridiculous term he called their sudden foray into this nonsensical world of do-gooders.

"And I," Blaise said, as bland as he could make it, "have yet to come up with a label."

"Oh please," Daphne said, "you have an opinion about everyone and everything."

Far too aware of the three Gryffindors watching their byplay, he tempered his response. "We're the idiots with by far the least sense of self-preservation in Slytherin," he said with a lengthy eye roll at Tracey's sudden insincere titter.

Daphne's lips thinned, making her severe disposition almost evocative of McGonagall. "I can't say I disagree," she said.

"A bit wordy, I think," Weasley said. He leaned forward in his seat with a "Stupid for snakes would have got the point across."

Tracey batted her eyelashes at Weasley. "With a wit like that, I can see why Granger is taking her time making a move."

Blaise just about stopped himself from placing his head in his hands. Surprisingly, Potter smirked as Weasley and Granger exchanged bewildered looks, both alight with blushes. Granger and Weasley's constant dancing around each other was a dance that Blaise would rather not think about.

"Tracey!" Daphne hissed.

"Let's not derail," Granger said, in as much of a hiss as Daphne.

Potter fixed Daphne with an evaluating gaze. "Regardless of Greengrass' family background… any of your backgrounds, you always have a choice," Potter said.

Blaise didn't even comment on that useless platitude.

"Sure, Potter," Tracey said, leaning forward in her chair.

There was a deep line between her black brows, though her seriousness was betrayed by the corners of her mouth lifting in a sardonic smile.

"Despite your glorification in unintelligent, suicidal heroism, Potter, the rest of us enjoy our continued existence," Daphne said with her forehead creased in annoyance. "Our preoccupation is with preserving it… unlike some."

Blaise watched Weasley's reaction to Daphne's verbosity and insult to Potter with amusement. He noted that the red blush of anger that was covering Weasley's face clashed horribly with his ginger hair.

"Too many syllables," he muttered to himself in humour before he said something that ended up with wands out.

"Well, if you had any morals you'd understand, Greengrass," Potter said, heavy warning laced in every single syllable.

Daphne and Tracey, for all their intelligence, were going about this wrong. From what Blaise had learnt about Potter, and could likely extend to his friends, pragmatism was a taboo, something for those of weaker will. They didn't appreciate, nor understand, the realities of being born in the sorts of family people like Daphne and Draco were a part of. He and Tracey were outcasts in the literal sense; he was a foreign-born wizard and Tracey was one of the few surviving members of a disgraced Pureblood family. They had no stake in whatever battle of good versus evil swept Britain.

Looking at Potter and his friends, he took in the blind, sanctimonious Gryffindors sat in front of him and despaired. Despite how the promise he'd made in the Hospital Wing had given him drive, Blaise found himself cursing his own existence for even making it. He wouldn't renege on his promise but in this instance, he found them wholly pathetic. They were so narrow-minded, so naïve. It was with a sigh that he tried to appeal to their moralism.

"The Dark Lord is the root of this problem, no?"

"Let's say…" Blaise scanned the Gryffindors in front of him, thinking who would best be affected by his argument. Potter was set in his ways, Granger was a Muggleborn who lacked the necessary perspective, and Weasley…

"Weasley."

"What?" The redhead snapped.

Blaise suppressed his automatic sneer in response as best as he could.

"Let's say it's the height of the Dark Lord's terror," he said. "Your friends' families have gone into hiding, people are disappearing, the Ministry is incompetent, toothless. Powerless."

"A little like now," Tracey said. "Let me do this Blaise."

Daphne cringed, knowing, like Blaise, exactly where this was going.

"Everyone in Slytherin knows. It's no secret," Tracey said with a friendly smile to Daphne.

Tracey frowned for a moment. It was a grisly story.

"During the Dark Lord's first assault on all the things we hold dear," Tracey said in her classic irreverent tone, "my father was approached by Death Eaters. My family has historically been… well, for Pureblood supremacy, but my father had married a Muggleborn. It was a scandal. My father was disowned over it."

Tracey closed her eyes, avoiding the sympathy that was practically radiating from Granger. It seemed she could tell that this was going to be a tragedy.

"He was an Unspeakable who did long stints in the Ministry, so he had a… somewhat bizarre way of dealing with his problems. They all go loopy in there. They'd wanted him to join them, purify his family tree, and some other insane bollocks. Kill my mother and I. We were impure, you see," Tracey said with a hollow smile.

"You... don't have to continue," Potter said. The pallor that Potter had acquired over the last year or two made his grim expression ghoulish.

"No, you need to understand that this bollocks about choice is easy for you to say," Tracey snapped.

She huffed as if they were debating their favourite Quidditch teams and not the death of most of her family. "Anyway, the offer he was given was simple: kill your family or we'll do it and then wipe out all my mum's relatives."

"Did he do it?" Weasley asked.

Tracey nodded, lips twisting with pain before she spoke. "Only reason I'm still here is because my aunt's home is Unplottable. She was looking after me as mum had severe postpartum – Calming Draughts didn't do a thing. I was told it was painless at least… her death. Heart-Stopping Curse. My father probably thought that a painless death was better than whatever torture the Death Eaters planned."

"Why didn't he tell anyone?" Granger asked.

Blaise rolled his eyes at the clear allusion to Dumbledore, the scion of perfect goodness in every Gryffindor's perception.

"Well, Dumbledore? I imagine that's who you're thinking of. No one intelligent trusts Dumbledore, especially those from families of… ill repute. You may forget this, but he is a politician in addition to being an educator. Besides, the Death Eaters were thorough, Auntie Liza told me all communications were being watched," Tracey explained.

"Also, DMLE was completely compromised back then and were just as likely to kill you as the Death Eaters. Bagnold and Crouch were ruthless, which back then was at times counterproductive," Daphne said.

"Naturally, he got set up, and the rebellious Davis son turned out to be like the rest in the end. He died in Azkaban for the murders of his wife and nine Muggles – her relatives which I'm told had shown spell damage from six separate magical signatures. Several family members were found to have been part of the group of Death Eaters who'd threatened father. You can draw the necessary conclusions. Some of them are still in Azkaban."

Tracey's hazel eyes were flat and stared at the Gryffindors... "Never trust a Death Eater," she remarked with a harshness in her voice that Blaise rarely heard.

Daphne sighed and turned to the Gryffindors. Blaise braced himself for another sob story. He was sympathetic, but all of this was old news to him. It served to show how little the rest of the school cared about Slytherin. That these very public stories were news to the Gryffindors was mindboggling.

"My father's first wife, my mother, was murdered when he was leaned on by the Nott patriarch to advance more aggressively anti-Muggle legislation. He was Chief Warlock back then. This was before the Ministry was in open war with the Dark Lord and unlike Tracey's father," Daphne said with an icy coldness as she looked at each of them in turn, "my father is a coward and he'd eagerly helped without needing to be threatened."

Her face pinched tight before slackening as she continued.

"He does believe that Muggles are a taint that should remain forever divorced from our world, but they're a distant taint. Not worth acknowledging or interacting with. Perhaps, it was that level of cravenness that made the Dark Lord decide to personally murder my mother. People like the Dark Lord don't seem to be the types to do distant hatred."

Blaise hammered the point to the shell-shocked Gryffindors – Weasley was biting his lip, Granger's eyes were suspiciously red, and Potter… Potter was elsewhere.

"Now, imagine if Daphne's father had refused. We wouldn't be speaking to her today. Same with Tracey who was saved by her mother having depression," Blaise said. "They are here due to choices made for better or worse. Perhaps things could have been different, but they aren't."

"And before you ask me about my views, Granger, I don't care about Muggles," Daphne said with a sniff.

Granger relaxed somewhat.

"And you?" Weasley asked, looking at Blaise with a sombre expression.

"Me?"

"No significant tragedies and I'm a Zabini," he said, feeling that explained more than enough. It proved insufficient by Granger's eye roll. "My mother's villa is under enough protective enchantments to make Flitwick blush. With the amount of gold she has, living under glorified house arrest is always an option for me if things become unbearable here."

Daphne took the opportunity to bring the conversation to brighter topics. "As you can imagine, Blaise here has never wanted for nothing," Daphne explained with a flourish of her hand.

"And doesn't want anything either," Tracey said with a sigh. "You'd think it'd be some weird form of humility, but he just feels it's his birthright to have expensive things."

"I – my mother," he corrected with haste.

"My mother," Tracey imitated in a crude impersonation of his Londoner drawl.

Weasley erupted into laughter and Granger giggled a little. Potter was still staring into space, still contemplating Tracey and Daphne's history.

"I don't sound like that!" He snapped.

The accent was a lot better than her first attempts at impersonating him, though there was still the slight impression of the Cockney accent she'd been suppressing since second year. It was a shame because he thought it was amusing, but Blaise understood the pressures of wanting to fit in.

"You're right, Zabini," Potter said, having emerged from his stupor, with the beginnings of mischief in his eerie eyes. "Nowhere near as snooty."

Blaise shrugged, not really knowing what to say to that.

"How Zabini manages snooty with a Londoner accent is beyond me," Granger admitted.

"He didn't always sound like that," Tracey said with the air of someone sharing a secret.

She winked conspiratorially at Granger who, despite the answering lip curl, was definitely interested in what she had to say. Looking at her friends, Potter and Weasley were also curious, though more discreet. It provoked a mixture of irritation and disbelief in Blaise that none of them knew about the fact he hadn't grown up in Britain. Did membership of Gryffindor come with a free Confundus Charm?

"He used to have a strange mix of your accent and a really thick Italian accent," Tracey said in a gossipy whisper.

"Italian RP…" Granger said in wonder. "What does that even sound like?"

"We don't talk about that," Blaise enunciated with about as much force as he could muster.

"Well, you don't," Daphne corrected with a dismissive eye roll, "I'm still curious as to how you ended up sounding like a working-class Londoner anyway."

"Common rabble is the correct term," Tracey said with a wicked smile.

"Are we going through Malfoy's greatest hits?" Blaise complained though he was smiling despite himself.

"Malfoy has greatest hits?" Granger asked with a perplexed expression.

Blaise shrugged.

"He's laughably uninventive when it comes to Potter," Blaise explained.

"Weasley is our King was genius though," Tracey replied with an uncomfortable scrunch to her face.

He understood her expression completely. The day where Blaise admitted aloud about Draco being competent at any aspect of this existence was the day he settled down with Bulstrode.

"It was irritating," he said after chuckling to himself at the glare the Gryffindors had given Tracey.

Daphne sighed as if she were in acute pain. "This is why Parkinson says you have the personality of month-old pumpkin juice, Blaise," Daphne added in a trailing whisper.

Granger erupted in giggles and a pair of broad grins crossed Potter and Weasley's faces. Blaise was above embarrassment, especially if it was beneficial like now. They had the Gryffindors' eating out of their hands.

"Who cares what she thinks?" Blaise replied. "I'm sure the fumes from the permanent Sticking Charm she has to Malfoy's arse have addled what little brain function she has."

Weasley choked and Potter roared with laughter.

"Is that why you laced her Beautification Potions with Canian Luxury Dog Shampoo for Itchy Skin and Detangling?" Tracey asked in a mock chastising tone.

"You… you pranked Parkinson?" Weasley said, trying to hold back throaty guffaws. It wasn't particularly successful as he sounded as if he were on the verge of an asthma attack.

"Dog shampoo?" Granger muttered.

"I can believe it," Potter said with a nod.

"Pranks are for children, Weasley," Blaise said.

A wry smile crossed his lips.

"No, this was reciprocity. She's always been remarkably pug-like. I just wanted to help," Blaise said with a sniff, fighting the malicious smirk about to appear on his face.

"See! It's not just me," Potter crowed to his friends as they laughed again.

"It was the Canian Maxima brand, by the way. Only the best and most effective for Parkinson," Blaise added with a magnanimous nod.

Granger seemed torn between horror and amusement.

"So, did it work?" Potter asked, his face fighting the urge to grin.

"It did give her hair a brilliant gleam," Tracey admitted with a laugh. "I don't regret helping Blaise at all."

"She made the girls' dorm smell like oatmeal and mangoes for weeks," Daphne snapped. "It was dire."

"An improvement," Weasley said with a grin.

Tracey returned it, ignoring Granger's eyebrows narrowing. For all that Tracey was pretty and vivacious with a wicked sense of humour, she was a Slytherin. Blaise was one hundred and ten percent sure that Weasley would never be interested in this lifetime.

"Pity about the fact that it made her hair thin a week later," Blaise said, stroking his chin in deep thought. "Next time I'll try something more suitable for a witch of her stature."

"Oh?" Weasley asked.

"Well, the next time Parkinson makes it clear that she's clumsily seeking help with her hair, I'm thinking shoe polish. There's a brand that stays coated to quality leather for months. It will work wonders on her mop."

"You're evil," Granger murmured in awe.

She sounded admiring. Blaise looked with more than a little desperation at Daphne for help. She reached into her silken satchel with dancing eyes.

"Now that the entertainment and sob stories are done, and you're comfortable," Daphne said, looking at Granger above all, "let's get to the real reason we're here."

She sat back into her seat, one leg folded over the other and brought out the piece of parchment they'd been working on since the dinner Potter had attended. It detailed profiles for everyone in their year, based on all the gossip Tracey did with Pansy when they were feeling friendly (they were currently on the outs), Daphne's connections, and his observations. They were confident it was accurate, particularly when it came to those likely to ally with Potter.

"To our perspective," Blaise began with what he hoped was a conciliatory tone, "you seem to be sleepwalking towards disaster."

The Gryffindor trio exchanged a look, confusion a common theme.

"What do you mean?" Potter asked.

Blaise let out of a breath of relief that they were at least prepared to listen.

"We're in the same classes as you, Potter. You're… good, great even, at Defense and Potions, but everything else?"

Granger seemed to realize where they were going with the sudden fury that crossed her face. "What are you trying to say, Zabini?"

"Tracey and Daphne are better than him at Transfiguration. I'm better than him at Charms, and none of us has immediate plans on fighting a Dark Lord," he said.

"We're not expecting you to be better than the Dark Lord," Daphne added. "He has decades on you, but…"

"Try harder basically!" Tracey said with a cheerful wink.

"And that life debt?" Potter asked.

Blaise risked making eye contact and found that Potter wasn't angry at all. There was only a slight furrowing of his eyebrows.

"Immediate plans, Potter," Blaise repeated.

Potter's face smoothed over.

"You really want to help," Weasley stated, sounding almost awed at the idea.

He'd been wrong to think that Granger would understand. Weasley would be their means of forming a cooperative relationship. For all his mindless hatred of all things Slytherin, he was the one who was willing to look beneath the surface of their words. Blaise was disappointed in Potter who'd failed to make the necessary conclusions. He wasn't surprised at all by Granger's failures, considering she'd gone into this with her hackles raised.

"Sure," Tracey admitted, "it seems at least to me that you're doing, to be blunt, fuck all."

She ignored the reactions to her language with a sneer, rolling her eyes at Daphne's annoyance and Granger's disgust. Potter didn't even seem offended, yet he still wasn't angry either. Blaise felt like he was waiting for Potter to blow up on them, but the anger never seemed to come. Continuing to defy expectations, Weasley remained the most contemplative of the three of them.

"Now, when I say fuck all," Tracey said, her wide grin showing how much she was relishing her foul language, "I mean you're doing fuck all to prepare for the Dark Lord apart from exploring your long-term obsession with Malfoy."

Potter's cheeks glowed. "He has got to be marked," Potter snapped.

"So?" Tracey asked.

"I doubt it," Daphne sniffed. "Only the inner circle gets marked."

"He's a Death Eater!" Granger shrieked, her face a veritable picture of disbelief. "Does it matter if he's marked or not?"

"Okay, are Gryffindors unable to see the bigger picture? There is a world outside of Hogwarts, you know?" Daphne snapped back.

"I think Harry and Hermione are more bothered because Malfoy almost killed me with poisoned mead and is responsible for Katie's current stay at St Mungo's," Weasley said with a dark look in his eyes.

Blaise's first inclination was to doubt. For all of Draco's failings, Blaise didn't think he'd yet stoop to attempted murder. The conviction in Potter's face and Weasley's words managed to convince him to at least consider the possibility. He didn't think Potter was much of a liar.

"We didn't know about that," Blaise admitted.

Blaise assumed it was a given they'd told Dumbledore, but that raised the question of why Draco was still roaming free. It was something to consider at a later point.

"It's fine. I understand what you're trying to say, I think," Weasley said. "But I want to hear what you have to say. What more do you think Harry can do? He already has pretty much all of Britain banking on him defeating You-Know-Who."

"Finally, someone with sense," Tracey snapped.

"On our first week back, I received an interesting letter from my father," Daphne said. "The Minister had told him, complained rather, in a meeting how the Potter boy had blown off the Ministry out of some childish moralistic naivety."

She made eye contact, revealing to Potter how unimpressed with him she was. The black-haired teen rose to the challenge, his eyes boring into Daphne's cool grey.

"He arrested Shunpike, the Knight Bus Conductor, for being a suspected Death Eater just so he could look like he was doing something. He wanted me to be some sort of mascot," he spat.

Blaise sighed – Potter didn't have a single political bone in his body.

"Well, of course, that's bollocks, but what have you achieved by taking the moral high ground? Is Shunpike not still in Azkaban?" Blaise asked, feeling so tired of Potter and his sanctimonious drivel that he wanted to just curse him and be done with it. For a moment, he felt like he could understand Draco.

He didn't want to talk to a Gryffindor ever again, really. If Potter was truly the best they could offer, the person on which everyone was meant to rest their hopes on, he'd send a missive to his mother telling her that he'd be going into hiding as soon as the term finished.

Blaise cursed in his head as he remembered the life debt.

"I –," Potter began before cutting himself off. "I couldn't be party to that, sorry. I'm not as heartless as you three."

Granger was almost as contemplative as Weasley.

"The word you're looking for is pragmatic," Blaise retorted with a long-suffering eye roll. "It achieves things apart from making you feel good about how self-righteous you are."

Potter broke eye contact to Blaise's consternation.

"Harry, perhaps you could have at least used the Minister to at least gain influence," Granger said slowly, cautiously as if afraid of Potter's reaction.

"Maybe," he murmured. "I – I'm just not good at the type of thing."

"Mate, none of us are," Weasley said with a robust nudge of Potter's shoulder.

"Granger is certainly clever enough," Blaise admitted.

Granger gave him a thin smile that he returned with a blank look.

"… I think that's where we come in," Tracey said in a slow drawl.

Daphne gave her a warning look before turning back to the Gryffindors.

"I don't agree with Blaise much, and at times I don't even really like him that much," Daphne said in a low, forthright tone, "but he's my friend. I don't have many of those as you may have noticed."

Where others would perhaps sound ashamed at that admittance of having few friends, Daphne was matter-of-fact, and Blaise could readily identify with that. Lingering on her words about him, though, Blaise wasn't at all offended as he felt the same. He and Daphne were far too similar for his liking. That was something that had become even more problematic since Potter had saved his life. Daphne had become a reflection of all the parts of himself that he was now finding problematic. Regardless of his skewed self-perception of late, she was his friend.

"You have made zero allies that wouldn't have followed you anyway out of obligation to Dumbledore. Merlin's sake, you didn't even change anything after Madam Bones died," Daphne snapped.

"Bones was one of the few Ministry officials I'd say was unsubvertible. Scrimgeour's Ministry's days are numbered; whether it's assassination, a vote of no confidence, or systemic undermining, this time next year there'll be a new Minister at this rate," Tracey confirmed. "My aunt left the country immediately after the Azkaban breakout. She expects me to join her after my exams."

"We should have used the Minister," Granger admitted with none of the uncertainty of earlier.

"Exactly!" Tracey crowed. "Merlin, you had such a great opportunity and you threw it away. Now you have no input in what he does, no say in how the country prepares for the Dark Lord. Knowing you Potter, you haven't shared any information with him about anything. You, the person who has survived the Dark Lord the most times, the subject of a prophecy! … you have nothing, and Blaise has decided to tie himself to nothing."

"This is my choice," Blaise said, closing his eyes at the finality he'd had in his tone. There wasn't regret in his mind, but the severity of what he was committing himself to was something that was still sinking in.

He grunted at Tracey's sudden punch. Wincing, he rubbed his stinging shoulder with a baleful look at the culprit. She had pointy knuckles.

"We're not going to let you be an idiot alone," she snapped.

Potter nodded to himself.

"I understand that," he muttered, giving Granger and Weasley an affectionate smile. "They'd do the same for me."

"What else would we do?" Weasley asked.

Daphne, tired of their sudden kumbaya moment, took control of the conversation before it became, Merlin forbid, even sappier.

"Granger and Weasley's side was predetermined when they chose to be your friends in first year," Daphne said, "and Blaise who could leave the country and have nothing to do with this has decided to help you."

Blaise swallowed slowly, acknowledging what he was committing himself to. A life where the Dark Lord was both aware of his existence and pursuing his death. If he had an appreciation of honour, it may have invigorated him. He didn't, so he would follow Potter out of obligation and this newfound narcissistic need to feel important. Dread would be a new companion of his it would seem. How Potter's friends dealt with it was beyond him, but Gryffindors weren't wired correctly by general principle to Blaise's understanding.

"And as much as Zabini would like otherwise, his role in your life will come out. There are already whispers going around the school about him paying for your new eyesight. You're under far too much scrutiny for it not to happen," Granger explained, finding her voice and giving both Blaise and Harry a serious look.

"You agree with them, Hermione?" Potter asked in a murmur.

"Yes and no," she said, still speaking as if Potter would react in a bad way. It was almost laughable how Granger couldn't read her friend. "Their moral… flexibility isn't something I necessarily identify with, but we're on the cusp of war and we're still here being schoolchildren."

"There is so much more we could do," Weasley ground out, eyes held shut and wincing.

Potter was worrying at his upper lip between his teeth, clearly conflicted. Weasley turned to face Greengrass with resolve in his eyes.

"You're doing this for Zabini," Weasley stated as if that was not obvious at this point.

"Clearly," Daphne said.

"Like you," Tracey added, with a slight nod of her head at the Gryffindors, "we want the best for each other. That's what friendship is about, no?"

Potter's face softened with such understanding that Blaise would have kissed Tracey if he was sure she wouldn't jinx him.

"We want to help you," Blaise said in a calm tone, more for Granger's benefit. "But if we're to help, you first need to help yourselves and realise your current path is one that I find narrow-minded."

Daphne rose to her feet, stuffing their profile sheet back in her bag.

"Duel me, Potter," Daphne demanded. "Let's see if there's any hope for Blaise."

"What?" Granger retorted, saving Blaise from having to voice his own disbelief.

"I get it, Hermione," Harry said, getting to his feet with a bounce of his feet. "Greengrass just wants to see if Bl – Zabini is putting his eggs in the right basket."

Blaise was a little disappointed that Potter covered his slip, but sarcasm masked the little hurt he felt with practised ease.

"If there are any baskets that don't involve the Dark Lord, do let me know Potter," Blaise called as they walked towards opposite sides of the room.

"Afraid not!" He called back.

The Chosen One vs Slytherin's Resident Bitch, to quote Parkinson. Daphne smirked at Potter.

"Let's see how you do under pressure, Potter," Daphne purred. "Watch."

With a jab of her wand, Daphne released a ball of flame into the air. It was of impressive size for the creation of an incendio. It spat, flickered, and flared angrily within Daphne's control, and for a second, the duel came to a standstill. Potter paced as he watched Daphne feed more and more magic into the spell, clearly not taking her as a threat. The large ball of flame grew until it was of comparable size to a horse. She smiled at Potter. There was the mischievous light of enjoyment in her eyes, a sign of life in her usual sedate and cold manner. It was captivating to see Daphne with such a careless grin on her face.

"Ventus!" She yelled.

Daphne jumped backwards as the fire roared towards Potter, burning white-hot and Blaise could read the panic crossing Potter's face.

"Are you trying to kill him!" Granger screeched, going for her wand.

"Harry will be fine," Weasley croaked with more confidence than it sounded like he had. Blaise did notice that he'd not even bothered to take his wand out.

For a moment, the fire seemed to cease motion in the air, and Blaise breathed. Daphne had had the sense to underpower her Ventus Jinx. Then, in the unpredictable nature of magical fires, it jumped forward, and Potter's contemplative expression faded as the flame began to close the distance.

"Aguamenti!" He roared.

Blaise sighed, cursing Potter's foolishness, and erected a Bubblehead Charm around himself for the ensuing steam. The plume of water that erupted from Potter's wand struck the ravenous fire with a discordant hiss, throwing steam across the room. It wasn't enough, and the somewhat diminished fire careened forward, swaying drunkenly in the air. The steam obscured Potter from view, and Granger rose to her feet, a spell on her lips. Weasley, sat closer to Potter, pushed her back down, clearly seeing something to remove any concern.

Blaise didn't even know he'd had his wand out until he could feel himself moving through the motions of a Flame-Freezing Charm before being stopped. Tracey gave him a strange look behind her own bubble, her hand squeezing his wrist in warning before releasing him.

Finally, Potter must have rediscovered his brain, as a large slab of ice emerged through the steam, extinguishing the flame almost immediately. Blaise accepted that a Freezing Charm was a good enough compromise.

"Daphne's gone insane," Tracey said in a monotone, nudging him as if Blaise wasn't aware.

Unlike him, she'd made no motion to get his wand out.

"You think?" Granger snapped.

Chaos seemed to erupt as Daphne randomly dove to the side as a red jet of light emerged from within the low visibility of Potter's side of the room.

In the brief lull, Blaise took his time to actually articulate his thoughts on Daphne's burgeoning pyromania. "Budget Fiendfyre," he remarked, applauding himself for not revealing the horror in his voice. Whilst he wasn't opposed to removing his life debt through something as inconsequential as a duel that had gone wrong, it didn't have the necessary gravitas for Blaise's tastes. It all came down to wanting to feel important. Blaise was going to miss his incognito life.

The large slab of ice began to shift in shape as Potter threw out low-level Jinxes and Disarming Charms from behind the shifting barrier. Daphne remained stationary and countered with Shield Charms and several nasty spells, a bored expression on her face. Blaise was certain he recognised the sickly yellow light of a Bone-breaking Curse in the mix, though the Gryffindors didn't going by their lack of outrage. The fog cleared, and Potter was stood behind an icy barrier and an array of dozens and dozens of icy bullets in front of the barrier, a mischievous smirk on his face visible from Blaise's angle. It seemed Potter had used the distraction of the steam to create two slabs of ice. One to stand behind, and one to shape into a counter-assault. Blaise approved.

"Seems this is more of an exhibition than a duel," Granger muttered, sweat gathering on her brow from the lingering heat of the steam. Blaise noticed with a tiny smile that her brows had been singed by the steam that had circulated throughout the room.

"Daphne's in trouble now," Tracey said, a curious expression on her face as she stared at their friend.

Daphne was still watching Potter with a scornful smirk.

"Really?" Blaise said, seeing numerous possibilities ahead of Daphne to remove Potter's conjured weapons. She could Vanish them, confringo, expulso… Though the latter two could cause serious harm if used unwisely.

"Geminio," Potter intoned.

Dozens turned into hundreds, and Blaise winced. Daphne was great at Transfiguration, but he doubted she could vanish all of them. It was difficult to vanish multiple objects, even if they were as small as Potter's bullets.

"Depulso," Potter murmured.

They raced towards Daphne with a faint whistle, lightning fast. Blaise whistled in appreciation; it was a well-cast Banishing Charm. She lifted her wand up, eyebrow lifted in disdain, and used another incendio, this time focusing it into a flat screen in front of her, liquefying the bullets as they passed through the barrier of flame. Blaise concluded that Daphne was a pyromaniac with how frequently she defaulted to fire magic.

"Geminio," Potter repeated, turning the last row of bullets into several dozen thick.

Blaise was about to voice his disbelief at Potter repeating a failed tactic when he dove to the side, out of Daphne's field of view, and landed in a roll. He threw out a Jelly-Legs followed by another Disarming Charm. The last of the bullets had yet to hit Daphne and she had a difficult decision: block the Jelly-Legs and Disarming Charm and get peppered by the ice bullets or get hit by two spells that would mean her defeat.

Daphne was ambitious, a true Slytherin, and chose both.

She pushed the flame wall several feet ahead of her, liquefying the remaining bullets. She turned to deal with the Jelly-Legs which she blocked with a clumsy Shield Charm. Her hasty barrier was not enough to prevent her wand from flying towards Potter.

He caught it with a solemn nod, and Daphne bit her lip in contemplation before she gave him a tiny smile and nodded. Weasley was whooping in his seat and Granger was smiling grimly as she took inventory of her horrible-looking hair. It had looked bad before, but with the steam… Blaise cringed.

Turning back towards Potter and Daphne to sarcastically applaud their circus show, he was derailed by the sight of Flitwick stood in front of the portrait hole, livid.

"Duelling!" Flitwick squeaked, his brows twitching violently. Blaise's lips parted at the the sight of Flitwick's pulse throbbing at his temple. "In the practice room!"

Flitwick vanished the film of vapour that had gathered on a nearby harpsichord with an angry jab and turned to Blaise, a ruddy red colour staining his otherwise pale skin. He'd never seen Flitwick so angry before. He didn't think he'd ever even seen Flitwick angry.

"I'm disappointed, Mr Zabini," he murmured, the sudden quietness almost disconcerting. "After leaving the string quartet last year, you violate my trust and use this room, that you are no longer allowed to use, to stage violent duels?"

Blaise didn't know what to say, but he tried to look at least contrite.

"Detention. Friday evening. I expect to see all of you, and we'll continue this until you learn why it's important that we do not duel unsupervised."

Flitwick deflated with a sigh, lowering his wand to his side and looking at each of them in turn. There was calculation in his gaze as he made eye contact with Blaise once more.

"Despite your lack of judgment, I'm pleased that in these dark times you've all at least tried to bridge the differences between your Houses. Considering that, I'll take only fifteen points from Gryffindor and Slytherin."

No one dared to say anything or make any reaction. It was far better than they deserved, and Flitwick's lips twitched at their expressions of relief.

"It gives me some hope for the future, and it is for that reason I will not inform Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape regarding what has occurred here. After all, this comes under the purview of the Professor in charge of musical activities at Hogwarts," he said.

Blaise finally exhaled a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

"Do not make me regret this," he said.

They all nodded hastily. For all of Snape's favouritism, Blaise wasn't quite sure if he wanted it to be known that he'd been rule-breaking with Potter. There was a fine difference between getting in trouble with Potter, like Malfoy did, and getting in trouble whilst being in cahoots with Potter. There were already enough rumours going around; he'd heard a particularly demented rumour that he and Potter were in a covert relationship and had had a mishap with a faulty broom cupboard. Eyeing Potter, Blaise decided that it could be worse – he wasn't unattractive.

"Sir?" Granger asked, "how'd you know what happened?"

"Arcangelo," and Flitwick nodded towards the painting of the Baroque composer at the doorway, listening with an intent gaze, "informed me of your meeting here and its subject. And of the impromptu duel Ms Greengrass and Mr Potter engaged in."

He gave Daphne a nod.

"Your intentions were good, Ms Greengrass, despite the disastrous idea of using Ventus on an unnaturally large flame," Flitwick said.

His voice grew incredulous.

"You could have burned the entire room down! Thirty points from Slytherin."

Daphne dipped her head, accepting the punishment gracefully. If Blaise were unbiased, he'd say that Flitwick should be taking her to see the Headmaster. She could have killed Potter. Though, Blaise was confident Granger would have intervened. Or himself, thinking back to the flame-freezing charm that he'd been ready to silently cast.

"My apologies, Professor," she said in her brisk manner, the high of adrenaline she must have been on long-gone. "And to you, Potter."

Potter shrugged easily.

"You got caught up in the moment. I also could have really hurt you with that ice," he said.

Daphne gave him a tight nod, seeming to not know how to deal with Potter's graciousness. Blaise knew all about that. Daphne turned to Granger, rolling her eyes at the vindicated expression she was wearing.

Weasley's eyes widened.

"Professor, you were here all along," Weasley breathed. "I could have sworn that the fire would have been right on top of Harry if not for that weird moment where it seemed to freeze in mid-air."

Flitwick sniffed in annoyance, but his severe expression softened significantly.

"Ten points to Gryffindor," he murmured.

Blaise thought to the double-sided portrait of Corelli standing vigil over the entrance to the practice room. He should have known that Flitwick was in here; Corelli didn't tend to stay in that portrait unless someone was inside practising. If Blaise remembered correctly, his sister portrait was in Flitwick's office.

"Professor, you were in here practising on the harpsichord," Blaise said with a groan.

"Indeed. I was disappointed you didn't realize that," Flitwick said with a smile. "Though perhaps it was for the best. Some of the things I've heard and seen have given me much to think about tonight."

"Are we in trouble?" Tracey asked delicately.

"Don't ask that," Blaise hissed back.

"I'll see you Friday evening, Ms Davis," Flitwick said, bouncing on his feet.

Blaise shared a look with his friends, knowing that they'd just dodged a massive potential punishment.

Going by the smile on Flitwick's face as he hurried them out of the room, they had an ally.


	5. luck is not chance, it's toil (3)

"Well, that was fun," Davis said with a grin.

Greengrass, stood at her side, gave her a look that screamed idiot. Harry was more inclined to agree with the brunette. It had been a little fun in the end.

"Less fire next time, I think," Ron said with a pointed look at the surly witch in question.

"I agree," Greengrass said, sounding the tiniest bit amused.

"No fire," Hermione snapped.

Hermione ran a quick hand through her singed locks, her frown deepening with the end of the movement at the burnt tips.

"At all," she added with a cool look at Greengrass.

"Don't worry, Granger. We'll discuss, at great length, Daphne's love of fire later," Davis said.

Davis sounded oddly serious compared to her jovial, at least jovial for a Slytherin, personality. Greengrass showed all the emotion of one of Hagrid's pumpkins in response, blank-faced and still. That was until Blaise cleared his throat expectantly, and she looked heavenward, a curl of her lower lip the only sign of her irritation.

"Fine."

Ron gave Harry a significant look, clearly wanting to hurry up so that they could go and speak in private. About what, Harry could only guess. There was so much to consider and so much to discuss. The redhead turned to speak to the Slytherins. "You're alright for snakes, but I'd rather not be seen with you," Ron said.

"The feeling is mutual," Blaise said.

Hermione was still mourning her hair, and Blaise was watching her with what Harry assumed to be pity. That was until he looked closer and saw the minute curl of his lip.

Harry was still thinking of what the three Slytherins had said regarding the lack of serious attention they'd given the threat of Voldemort, and Harry was forced to admit that they were correct. Whilst he was happy to have won against Greengrass, he wasn't stupid enough to think she had been taken their duel with any seriousness. Neither of them had. As her wand had landed in his hand, all he'd been able to think was how impressive and horrifying Dumbledore and Voldemort's duel in the Ministry had been. The clash of two juggernauts, evenly matched and equally magnificent in their prowess with magic, and here he was as Hermione had said, playing schoolkid.

The glow of acquiring Slughorn's memory had long faded and all that was left was that nagging feeling that they'd made no progress at all. Dumbledore had to have a good reason to not believe in teaching Harry how to fight, but how else was he expected to defeat Voldemort when all the Horcruxes were gone? The next time Harry saw him, he would at least press Dumbledore for some way to train or circumvent the decades of experience Voldemort had on him. It would be easy to blame Dumbledore for his feelings of powerlessness, but he could have taken the initiative and tried to learn in his own time. The blame laid with multiple parties, and it was something he would have to rectify. He wanted Blaise's opinion though. He'd heard plenty from Greengrass and Davis, enough to know that they thought little of him, and he could get that. He would likely feel the same way if Ron or Hermione were in Blaise's position. Blaise hadn't disagreed with them or put up a token defence of Harry's inaction, unjustified as it was. Yet it still stung to know that despite declaring his support in him, the cold Slytherin had little faith in him. The idea of someone offering support, yet feeling like they were completely doomed, was something Harry had never experienced from his friends.

This was likely to be an impulsive decision, but Harry didn't think he wanted whatever support Blaise was offering to be begrudging. It was a self-defeating idea to Harry. He would have to give the Slytherin a reason to believe that he wasn't signing his life away.

"Come over here," Harry said with an impatient wave to Blaise.

"What?"

"We need to talk," Harry said.

Blaise's eyebrows arched in question.

"We just spoke," he said

"In private," Harry added.

Greengrass and Davis shared a look that oddly reminded Harry of the way that Lavender and Parvati would look at each other during the days around the Yule Ball. It had been like a routine they did whenever a boy entered the room. Blaise stared at him, narrow eyes intense, before he shrugged his consent.

"Fine," Blaise murmured.

"I see," Greengrass said, almost amusement in her voice. "We'll see you in the Common Room, Blaise."

"Later, Blaisey," Davis sang with a playful bump of her hip against the nonplussed Slytherin. The dour expression on the black teen's face broke, and he gave her a gentle push.

They watched the two Slytherin girls leave in silence, becoming quiet footsteps in the distance. Harry smiled a little when Davis linked arms with the haughty blonde who made no movement to remove her. In fact, Harry was sure she helped loop their arms together. Behind all the ice, fire really, there was a heart there.

He turned to his friends who were waiting, perhaps assuming that they would be a part of the conversation, but this was something he thought it was best to do alone.

"I'll meet you back in the Common Room?" Harry asked. Hermione was surprised, but Ron nodded when they made eye contact. It was strange to think that Ron was the most onboard with the whole situation, but Harry would look this gift horse in the mouth.

"Do anything stupid, Zabini, and I'll make sure you regret it," Hermione said.

"I don't know, Hermione. He seems a little smarter than Malfoy," Ron added with a snort.

Blaise rolled his eyes before fixing Harry with a withering gaze as if everything that had gone wrong in his life was his fault. In a way, Harry thought that the Slytherin could make a somewhat compelling case for it.

"I'm sure Potter can handle me just fine," he said.

At that, Hermione's cold expression only grew frostier, yet Harry was impressed that Blaise had managed to sound at least a little sincere saying that.

"Mate, what about our homework?" Ron asked.

It would have to wait. Harry didn't think he could concentrate with the uncertainty and questions stuck in his mind.

"I've already drafted my Defense essay," Blaise said. Harry was concluding that Blaise couldn't give a damn about either Ron or Hermione by how little patience he had with them. Even now, he was still giving Harry that look, not once looking at his friends when they spoke. "I'll share my draft with Potter, and I imagine Granger will do whatever magic she does to keep Weasley from being held back a year."

Blaise finally made eye contact with Hermione to give her a sympathetic smile, one more suited to wishing condolences for a dead loved one.

"He's not that bad," she admitted with a tiny smile.

"Bloody hell, I'm not anywhere near that bad. It's like your impression of me is from second-hand Malfoy nonsense, and you're the one who claims that Parkinson is attached to Malfoy's arse," Ron said in a surprisingly pleasant tone. Unlike any normal person who would be insulted, Blaise's eyes seemed to light with interest as he seemed to look at Ron for the first time since Flitwick had dismissed them. It was the look that Harry fancied Blaise had whenever he thought he'd encountered a worthy opponent.

"Well, I could insult your parentage, lack of money… the possibilities are endless and unfortunately, most have been well explored by Malfoy. Potter has me feeling all nice and… Gryffindor lately," Blaise said with a dramatic sigh, "so I suppose you're spared this time, Weasley."

"Not as creative as you think then, huh?" Ron snapped back.

Harry didn't know whether to laugh or get angry on Ron's behalf, but the faint blush of red that had crept up Ron's face faded to Harry's relief. Ron had to have realised that Blaise was harmless. He was just words. Then a smirk crossed Blaise's face and Harry braced himself anew. He'd begun to associate that expression with Blaise saying something caustically sarcastic or plain rude.

"And even if Granger helps you, Snape will dock marks from the both of you for being well… you. Maybe just not doing it would be an improvement?"

Harry shook his head, taking inventory of the reappearance of Ron's flush. He decided it would be a good idea to try and lower tensions before Ron got mad.

"Sounds like a fast track to detention. Thanks, I'll take the draft, Zabini."

"Harry, we'll see you in the Common Room," Ron said with a snort.

He was clearly eager to see the back of Blaise as soon as possible and tugged on Hermione's arm, but she remained still.

"Do you make it your life's goal to be rude, Zabini?" She asked.

"Why, yes. It gives me meaning," Blaise drawled. He gave his watch a quick glance, eyebrows furrowing deeply. He lifted an imperious brow at Hermione. "Do you mind? Potter wants to talk to me for some bizarre reason. I can only imagine you're feeling left out?"

Hermione's lips pursed in annoyance, but before she could say anything, Ron murmured in her ear. Whatever he said, she must have agreed with as it sank the sails in her proverbial boat. Without a word, they both walked off. Harry sighed under his breath, knowing that he'd have difficult questions to answer in the Common Room.

"See you later," Harry called after them.

They both waved as they turned around a corner. After they'd disappeared from view, Harry gave his full attention to the darkly amused Slytherin at his side.

"Blaise," he said.

The Slytherin just smirked at him, already anticipating his reprimand. "I need to get my fun somewhere, Potter," Blaise said.

"I'd appreciate it if you could manage not being a complete arse when doing it," Harry snapped.

He gave Harry a cool gaze before he nodded.

"I'll consider it," Blaise said.

Harry exhaled through his nose, cursing the Slytherin in his head, and Blaise met his gaze, amused and dismissive. Fifty galleons was how much Harry was ready to bet that Blaise would be up to his usual antics the next time he met Ron and Hermione.

"You… do that," Harry said, half-fighting the urge to jinx him. "Now come here."

Blaise rose an eyebrow in question, but his eyes lit up in understanding when Harry produced the silvery fabric of his Cloak out of his bag.

"Impressive," he murmured, fingering the material as Harry began to straighten it out. Looking at the Slytherin out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed no signs of want or envy. It was strange as even Hermione had had a moment of envy, but he remembered what Greengrass and Davis had said about Blaise wanting for nothing. Perhaps it hadn't all been jest.

They crouched together as Harry draped his Cloak on top of them. Harry half expected it to be awkward as they tiptoed together in silence, passing torch after torch and painting after painting, but Blaise was generally a silent type when he wasn't antagonising people. These days, going under the cloak with Ron ended up with Harry's ankles and Ron's calves peeking out, so it was a nice change of pace to go under the cloak with someone of similar height.

Harry rather obsessively ignored the fact that Blaise smelt incredibly nice.

Harry led them towards a false painting that hid a winding staircase to the third floor. He hadn't used this passage in more than three years, but he had faith that it hadn't been sealed. Approaching the watercolour depicting the Hogwarts sunset in muted pinks and purples, Harry outlined one of the clouds in the top right of the vista with his wand.

With a low whoosh, the painting disappeared, and a pitch-black hollow appeared in its place. Rushing into the revealed entrance, Harry stripped the cloak off them. Blaise entered after him with none of his hurry.

" _Lumos_ ," Harry murmured.

A bright ball of light emerged from Harry's wand, illuminating the darkness, and he heard Blaise flick his wand a second later. The smattering of dust and cobwebs in front of them vanished, leaving the faint smell of sandalwood in its wake. Harry decided he liked it more than Mrs Weasley's strong lavender. It was subtle.

"I hate filth," Blaise muttered as if it weren't obvious.

The darkness solidified further with the painting reappearing behind them, and Harry fed a little more magic into his Lumos. Harry looked behind him, finding Blaise looming over his shoulder as if to use him as a shield. He was so… prissy.

"You're a regular princess, aren't you," Harry said, rolling his eyes unseen. "It's just a little dust and cobwebs."

Blaise harrumphed. "I can assure you, Potter. There is nothing at all feminine about me," Blaise said.

They continued towards the staircase, and Harry considered how exactly to address the audible purr he'd heard in the Slytherin's voice. It felt almost like he was flirting, but Harry was not going to provide him with the reaction he craved. Blaise was the type who somehow found enjoyment in irritating people.

"The fact you need to assure me of that tells me all I need to know," Harry said.

Blaise hummed, and it was a mystery as to how he managed to make it sound patronising. "A life of partial blindness can leave its mark, Potter."

"I saw perfectly fine!" Harry said.

"Perfectly," Blaise repeated.

Harry made eye contact with the Slytherin, frowning when he saw the scorn in his eyes. "What's that meant to mean?"

Half-looking over his shoulder as he walked, Harry was halted by Blaise's grip on his shoulder. He blasted a large cobweb Harry was about to walk into with a little amused cough.

"It was… a functional type of blindness," Harry said with a sigh.

"And?" Blaise drawled.

The dark-skinned Slytherin nodded to a clump of dust at their feet before vanishing it.

"And next time I'll make sure to pick a properly sanitized secret passage," Harry said in a monotone.

"See that you do," Blaise said. His clipped cadence dripped with irritation. "This is disgusting."

Harry braced himself against the wall as they approached the lip of the old, rickety staircase. One of Blaise's long-fingered hands closed around his upper arm. Half-jumping in surprise, Harry shrugged and rolled his shoulder in vain protest and Blaise's already strong grip became vice-like.

"If I'm to fall again due to your incompetence, you're coming with me," he said.

Harry nodded with a wry smile and began to lead them down the staircase, taking each creaking step with care. Rather than using Harry as security, which he could have accepted, Blaise was steering him with firm, yet gentle, twists and turns of his shoulder. At times it felt like Blaise was on the cusp of frogmarching him down the stairs, and Harry quickly grew irritated.

"Afraid?" Harry snapped.

Blaise snorted in his ear but eased up the pressure on his shoulder. It was an improvement, but Harry would rather he stop it all together. The problem was that the narrow, fragile staircase left no room for sudden movements, and unfortunately, Blaise had a powerful grip.

"Afraid of your clumsiness resulting in another trip to the Hospital Wing? Yes," Blaise drawled.

Blaise patted Harry's shoulder before clasping it once more, and Harry came to a halt, half-tempted to force him to let go before remembering again how precarious their footing was on this staircase.

"After all, I wouldn't want the Chosen One to have another accident in the dark," Blaise said.

The Slytherin was pointing his wand over Harry's shoulder at distant cobwebs, vanishing them. The movement threw the Slytherin's profile into the light of Harry's wand: he was smiling, and his eyes were glittering with mischief.

"You don't seem like the touchy-feely type, Blaise," Harry said with a pointed stare at this shoulder.

Blaise met his gaze, and a smirk replaced the smile on his lips.

"I've touched your exposed bone, Potter. I think I can handle your clothed shoulder," he said with an ease far away from the discomfort he'd shown in the Hospital Wing.

Harry's stomach churned at the mental image, but he didn't dwell on it for long. He was sick of Blaise's antics at this point.

"Let go," Harry said.

Harry turned on his heel to face the Slytherin, whose hand finally released his shoulder. Blaise closed his eyes with a wince as the light of Harry's lumos entered his direct field of view, but Harry was a little too annoyed to apologise.

"All you had to do was say something," Blaise said after a lengthy rub of his eyes.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as they reached the end of the stairs. Blaise brushed past him, walking deeper into the hollow towards the exit.

"Parkinson was wrong," Harry said.

"Hmm?"

"Three-month-old pumpkin juice," Harry said.

Blaise snorted. "That was back in second year, Potter. If you want to have even a remote chance at getting back at me, you may have to think of your own insults."

With his wand hand, the Slytherin continued to use Scouring Charms to clean the path ahead of them.

"So, you play an instrument?" Harry asked.

"Violin mostly, but I'm a respectable enough violist. Flitwick asked as no one at Hogwarts is any good at the viola," Blaise said.

"Is it enjoyable? I mean, you left according to Flitwick?"

"Well, I've been playing in his quartet since third year, and in the beginning, it was as bad as I expected. Viola parts in Baroque music are dull as Binns, and Flitwick is absolutely obsessed with Baroque. The moments when we get to play more modern music make it enjoyable. Thank God for Bones or we'd never have played any Ravel. Now that is fun," Blaise said.

"Susan? Susan Bones?" Harry asked. He tried to imagine shy Susan in a group with Blaise and failed.

"What? You thought we were all Slytherins? It's me, Padma Patil, Susan Bones, and Sue Li."

Harry didn't recognise the last name but didn't dwell on it as they were now stood in front of the exit. Whilst Blaise cast Scouring Charms on his clothes, smoothed creases in his jeans and concerned himself with his appearance, Harry pulled the Marauder's Map out of his bag.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," Harry murmured.

"Am I meant to believe that?" Blaise murmured back in his smooth baritone.

Ink threaded throughout the parchment, revealing the map that Harry had grown long acquainted with. Harry looked at his companion whose only reaction was a delicate lift of his eyebrow. That was at least before his eyes latched onto the labelled footsteps clustered in the Gryffindor Common Room in the top right corner of the fold Harry had opened. His lips parted in clear surprise then.

"Heirloom? Like your cloak?" Blaise asked.

"Something like that," Harry said, not wanting to reveal too much.

Harry flicked through the many folds and side flaps until he found the two of them on the third floor. To Harry's disbelief, Mrs Norris was prowling back and forth along the corridor in front of them

"That's a problem," Blaise said with a sigh.

"We'll just wait until she goes, I guess," Harry murmured, half paranoid that the cat would hear them and camp outside their hiding place.

Blaise tapped his wand against the parchment. "Do you mind if I try something?" He asked.

"Well, as long as you don't take a leaf out of Greengrass's book," Harry said.

Remembering Snape's little incident with the Map, he was curious as to how they'd address Blaise.

" _Incanto revelio_ ," Blaise murmured.

A spray of multicolour sparks erupted from the parchment.

"What was that?"

"Spell Revealing Charm."

"Homenum revelio but for spells?"

Blaise continued to stare at the technicolour chaos the map had become.

"Exactly. It's really limited – only shows spells that you're familiar with. Wizards like Dumbledore can generally deconstruct the magical make-up of enchanted items by touch."

"What do you see?"

"Nothing really. Enchanting objects isn't my forte. I'm more into cosmetic charms which are just precise jinxes if you think about it. I'm also fond of animation and counter-spells," Blaise murmured, running his wand along the primary fold of the map in awe.

"You don't recognise anything," Harry said in disbelief. Wasn't he meant to be better than him at Charms?

"By that, I mean I don't recognise anything that would give the map its function. I recognise some artistic charms – Fixation Charm for storing ink, but that would be unrelated to drawing the map, Preservation charm to preserve the parchment, Strengthening Charm to prevent it from tearing. This orb here," he pointed to the beige spray of sparks emerging from a large brown orb, "I'm guessing to a degree, but it reminds me of a Protean Charm. Instead of linking objects, it obviously links people to this Charm here," his wand circled the white spray covering the entirety of the parchment, "which is a cartographic Charm. I don't know which one though, but I'm certain of that."

The Slytherin's brows drew together in confusion. "Your map is sentient? It's asking for my name."

"Well, the creators put echoes of their personality in it," Harry said with a shrug. He didn't quite understand how that worked.

Blaise muttered his name at the parchment. Harry watched as his confusion disappeared and a frown replaced it, deepening with each scrawling line of ink that graced the page.

"Potter, take this back before I burn it," Blaise finally muttered.

Harry accepted the Map back, folding the flaps detailing the Grounds back into place. As he did so, he read what the Marauders had to say about Blaise.

 _Prongs: The Black Widow had a kid?_

 _Moony: Must have. I don't know any other Zabinis._

 _Padfoot: My old hag of a mother had many a thing to say about Her Spideryness after Gunther Rowle ended up dead. None of it nice._

 _Moony: Can't have been any worse than the Prophet._

 _Padfoot: You know my mother, Moony. Her usual insanity mixed with some good old-fashioned xenophobia._

 _Wormtail: She inherited the lot, didn't she?_

 _Padfoot: Left the entire family destitute. To be honest, I can't think of better people for it to have happened to._

 _Moony: How'd she even manage that? They were only engaged when he died, right?_

 _Wormtail: Who knows?_

 _Prongs: Well, the owner of our map seems to have the worst luck. First Snape, now the Black Widow's daughter._

Harry had to stifle a laugh at his dad's assumption that Blaise was a girl.

 _Moony: Let's hope she doesn't have a face capable of launching a thousand ships._

 _Prongs: More likely a face capable of stealing tens of thousands of galleons, really._

 _Padfoot: Now that's a face worth dying for._

 _Moony: Speak for yourself, Padfoot._

Harry hazarded a contemplative glance at Blaise who was watching him, a disdainful curl to his lips. Harry stopped his nosy reading with a nervous swallow.

"Feel proud of yourself, Potter?"

Ears burning red with embarrassment, Harry apologised. As someone with his own secrets and deep want for privacy, he should have known better. "I'm sorry," Harry said.

Even now, the Marauders were still speaking, ink appearing further and further down the page until it disappeared beyond an overlying flap of parchment. There were so many questions he wanted to ask. He knew about Blaise's mother from Slug Club, but he'd never given any thought to what having a rich mother whose husbands constantly died meant. Harry was sure asking someone you barely knew about their potentially murderous mother was a bad idea.

Blaise gave him an impatient snort in reply. "Merlin knows you have enough curiosity to doom the entire feline population of Britain," he said with a tiny curl of his lip.

It wasn't an invitation to ask questions, but it was as close to a 'you're forgiven' Harry would get from him. Harry muttered a quick 'mischief managed'.

"I don't think Mrs Norris is going anywhere anytime soon," Harry said after stowing the Map in his bag.

The dark-skinned Slytherin fell back to lean against the wall, sharp features illuminated by the bright light of Harry's wand.

"We can stay here, I suppose." His cold eyes surveyed their surroundings and he sighed, managing to communicate long-suffering pain and arrogance in the sound. "What did you want to talk about?" Blaise asked.

Harry swallowed a little nervously. He hadn't planned… anything.

"Spit it out, Potter," Blaise said, eyeing him curiously. "I don't bite."

"Just bark," Harry corrected.

Blaise chuckled a little. "Exactly. There's hope for you yet," he said.

Taking the opportunity with Blaise in a good mood, he asked what he'd been looking to learn since the Slytherin had pledged himself to helping him in the Hospital Wing.

"Do you know what Malfoy is up to?"

Blaise laughed at him, though the clench of his jaw made Harry think that he may have offended the Slytherin.

"You took your time, Potter. I don't think he's marked, like Daphne, but I do think the Dark Lord has given him some sort of kind of task. In fact, you tell me what you know, and I'll see what I can add to it."

"But… aren't you and Malfoy friendly?" Harry asked, wanting to clear this up before he volunteered any information.

"You think we're friends? If you're referring to that conversation on the train you eavesdropped on, I thought it was smarter to just agree to sit with the potential Death Eater than to say no," he said with a sigh as if explaining something mind-numbingly obvious.

Considering the Slytherin before him, Harry decided that in a way Blaise was a microcosm of everything that was wrong with the Wizarding World. He was the epitome of just going with the flow, not rocking the boat, taking the path of least resistance.

"I heard what you said about Ginny. It seems you would fit in just fine with him," he snapped.

Blaise folded his arms, looking oddly defensive before he became resolute. Almost angry. "I don't give two shits about her. She's irrelevant to me," he retorted with a sneer, and his eyes glimmered with malice at the rebuttal on Harry's lips. "But you don't think that, do you? I've seen the way you used to constantly watch her, always glaring at that Muggleborn she was dating. She's single now, isn't she? I'm sure if you whistled in her direction she'd come running, Potter. So… what are you waiting for?"

Harry's stomach rolled uncomfortably at the topic of the conversation. It wasn't like Malfoy's mean-spirited rudeness – it was far too defensive for Harry to immediately ascribe Blaise's lashing out to wanting to make him feel terrible. Yet, he was doing a far better job than Malfoy without even having to directly insult him. If Malfoy was the crude swing of a bat, then Blaise was the precise prick of a needle.

Swallowing thickly and trying not to lose his temper, Harry tried to take some control over the sudden row they'd entered. "So why did you call her a filthy blood traitor then?"

"I'm in Slytherin. Do keep up, Potter," he said with an insincere smile. "We're all evil, aren't we?" His smile grew terrifying and Harry broke eye contact, finding it hard to look at the cold fury spelt in every other feature of the Slytherin's face. "We all hate fucking Muggles. Never mind that some of us, like me, are unashamed of being related to them."

That was a bit of a bombshell to comprehend and something Harry imagined that Blaise would not be willing to share. Harry concluded that Blaise wasn't angry at him but angry at the assumptions, the misconceptions and sweeping stereotypes that formed Harry's conceptions of Slytherin. Perhaps this was something he'd always bottled up. It finally clicked for Harry, he finally understood that like him, like everyone, Blaise was greater than his House. Still, Harry was reluctant to accept that insulting the girl he liked was necessary to fit in, but was his opinion really of any worth? He didn't have to live with Malfoy and people like him. He'd dodged Slytherin.

During his thinking, Blaise sighed and shook his head. "If it means anything to you, I'd like to apologise for my comments about Weasley," he said, sounding begrudging. Harry was certain that apologies weren't meant to be offered whilst sounding like the prospect of getting married to Snape. "My intent wasn't to offend you. I was just…"

"Frustrated?"

The black teen looked at him, awe overtaking him. Blaise shook his head and gave Harry an intent gaze. "You finally understand?"

"I don't like it, but I think so," Harry admitted.

Blaise nodded to himself. "Progress," he said and just like that, it was like they'd never been on the verge of a shouting match. Harry almost thought he'd develop whiplash at the sudden return to business. "Now, you say he's been trying to kill people. Elaborate. Share what you know, and I'll see if I can add anything."

And so, Harry detailed everything he knew about Malfoy. From the excursion in Diagon Alley, where Malfoy flinched at Madam Malkin touching his left arm, threatening Borgin with Greyback in return for safekeeping an item, the suspicious behaviour and disappearances over the year, and the two murder attempts.

"And you've told the Headmaster?" Blaise asked, his eyebrow was in danger of disappearing in his hairline.

"Trust Snape," Harry recited, feeling almost numb.

"Well, of all the things you've told me, this has to be the most disturbing," Blaise murmured, twirling a braid in one hand.

"You... don't trust Snape?"

"Trust him to prevent Malfoy from killing someone? Yes and no," Blaise said. "It's no secret he was a double agent for Dumbledore, but I wouldn't trust a double agent with something like this, especially with how things are going for… well, your side."

"We're losing, aren't we?" Harry whispered.

Blaise cleared his throat, cleverly deciding that that wasn't a topic worth exploring right now.

"Malfoy is trying to assassinate someone, clearly. Priority targets could be anyone, but I'm inclined to think it's a member of staff. There are far too many opportunities to kill a fellow student for him to fail twice."

Harry gave Blaise a strange look at his blasé assessment.

"Dumbledore?" He offered.

"My guess as well," Blaise said, nodding, "but it wouldn't explain why he's just… letting Malfoy almost kill students."

Blaise offered what he'd observed, and it was interesting – Malfoy had somehow become the focal point of power in the House.

"Malfoy told Urquhart I would be playing Chaser this year," Blaise said with a cringe, "and that was that."

"You didn't want to play?" Harry asked.

"No. You've hopefully gathered that I don't want public attention," Blaise said.

Blaise detailed how Malfoy stopped sleeping in the dorm after Christmas, and it confirmed Harry's suspicions that he was living in the Room of Requirement. Then there were other tidbits about the frequent meetings Malfoy and Snape had, how two second year girls Davis was fond of had become incredibly meek lately (and Harry would bet they were the ones Crabbe and Goyle were Polyjuicing themselves as), and Malfoy's sudden stalking of Blaise after Harry saved his life. Blaise believed Malfoy was feeling under attack by Harry's new, apparent strategy of converting Slytherins to his side.

With Malfoy exhausted, Harry moved onto something that had been stewing in his mind since Blaise had offered that laughable apology.

"Why are you nicer to me than you were to Ron or Hermione?" Harry asked.

Ignoring the moment earlier, Harry had noticed that Blaise's insults or barbs were generally softer when addressed towards him and addressed safe topics. When talking to Ron, he'd immediately latched to subjects Ron was insecure about. He hadn't really given Hermione much attention which was in a way even more damning. Harry had recalled him offering her compliments, but it was almost in the way one would address the existence of a particularly useful tool.

"I respect you," Blaise said with a huff. His eyes glinted with amusement at Harry's taken aback expression. "Keep on asking stupid questions, Harry, and I'll stop playing favourites if that's what you'd prefer."

Harry hadn't comprehended much after the first sentence.

"You respect me?" He asked, gobsmacked.

Blaise closed his eyes, clearly pained. Harry wasn't certain whether that pain was aimed at him or his following words. "I may not have given the right impression of that earlier, but I wouldn't be here if I didn't think you weren't worth my time," he said.

"But… you said – "

"Stop talking." Harry was reluctant to follow that order, but the sight of Blaise walking over halted him. Blaise began to sit down beside him with none of the fuss he'd shown earlier when moving through the dust and pressed down on his shoulder. Sinking onto his arse, Harry took his seat. He was curious as to what had had Blaise so intent on close contact. "I'm going to speak, Potter, and you are going to listen very carefully."

Blaise shuffled a little closer, close enough that Harry could feel his body heat, and looked him deep in the eye, looking more serious that Harry had ever seen him.

"I owe you my life, Potter. Perhaps you're hoping that I want to help you out of some deeply buried goodness within me. I can assure you that that's not the case, but if it makes you feel better you can believe that. I am helping you because I owe you, and I…" Blaise broke eye contact, staring at his knees, a gamut of emotions running across his face. "I feel like I have purpose. I don't feel aimless for once. I feel like I matter. I haven't done much yet to help you, but I want you to know that as infuriating as I find you, I will have your back."

It was confirmation of Harry's suspicions in the Hospital Wing, but it was depressing to hear how little belief Blaise had in his moral compass. Harry was of the opinion his existed, but it wasn't something that had proven useful in his life. It was about a lack of use rather than a deficiency.

"You talk about yourself like you're not a good person. If what I said in the Hospital Wing was right, what's stopping you from being better? You're coming to me for purpose, so what's stopping you from developing. Are you not good enough?" Harry said, appealing to Blaise's sense of pride.

"I know what you're trying to do, Potter," he said with a sniff. Blaise ran a hand across his face as if to sweep the discomfort in his expression away. "I've never been vulnerable in front of someone like that before."

Harry let him change the subject, half-disappointed but understanding that this was a difficult conversation for Blaise.

"You let Davis and Greengrass embarrass you earlier," Harry said.

Blaise squinted at him, disbelieving.

"Stop being stupid, Potter. I'll get my revenge on them at some point; I can assure you of that, but what I mean is that I've never shown emotional vulnerability in front of someone like that before," he said.

Harry considered the idea of someone having never been upset or mad in front of another person. By Harry's standards, Blaise's reaction to their flirt with death was rather mild. The decision to involve himself with Harry's future was drastic, but the emotional response had been non-existent apart from some nightmares.

"Is there anything wrong with that?" He asked hesitantly.

Blaise's eyes darkened with irritation.

"It's just not… who I am," Blaise murmured. "At least that's what I thought."

"Do you even know who you are?" Harry asked. At times, it felt like he didn't know himself. All he had were convictions, hopes for the future, and his friends.

"Ask me that question last week, and I could answer that," Blaise admitted. He fell silent for a moment, emotions warring on his face, as he struggled to find words to describe his current situation. It was strange to watch Blaise, someone who always had something witty to say, struggle. "Now? Not so much."

"A little identity crisis?" Harry asked.

"More than a little," came Blaise's annoyed reply.

"I mean… you're here with me, it can't be that bad, can it? Harry asked with a smirk.

"Oh, Potter. I can't imagine things being worse," he joked.

Harry gave him a friendly nudge.

"You don't have to do this, you know? I don't expect or want you to help me out of some obligation, but I'd like if you were helping me because you want to. The only way I can see that working out is if we became friends."

Blaise's eyebrows rose together.

"Us. Friends? You think that would work out?"

"As infuriating as I find you," Harry began, smiling at Blaise's sudden eye roll, "you're funny, sometimes. I've learnt a lot in the few days we've talked, and I think you need a friend like me."

"Oh?" Blaise was staring at him, an arm slung around his knees, and head against the wall. Despite how casual his posture was, his unmoving gaze revealed how pivotal Harry's next words would be.

"I think we could be good friends and besides, who else are you going to be vulnerable in front of other than Saint Potter?" Harry joked with a smirk. Even if quoting Malfoy felt like tasting a shit flavoured Bertie Botts bean, it felt fitting.

Blaise gave him an uncharacteristic grin, but it faded into a slight smile. Lockhart had been said to have won Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile award five times but lit at the light at the end of Harry's wand was what Harry thought was a true contender. Bashful was the way Harry would use to describe the curve to the Slytherin's lips. The glimmer of his teeth peeking through his full lips was especially radiant against the caramel of his skin. It was a transformation to see Blaise smiling without any hint of his usual condescension or arrogance, and Harry was taken aback at realizing just how attractive he was. Ginny had referred to him as a poser, and Harry could see where she'd gotten that conclusion, but now such a description felt crude. Insufficient.

For once, Harry truly looked at Blaise. He took him in, focusing on the appearance rather than on his body language and words for hidden intent. It was easy to draw comparisons to Cedric, another Hogwarts student who'd also been extremely handsome, but a simplistic, yet accurate, way to distinguish Blaise from the late Hufflepuff would be the exoticness of his features: the long slant of his brown eyes, and the fullness of his lips. The only thing they shared, looks-wise, was their chiselled features.

Harry would have been insecure if Blaise had flirted with perfection in the way that Cedric had seemed to, but it was easy to make eye contact. Blaise, all in all, was a person, just as flawed and complex as any other. Harry didn't agree with Blaise and his friends' belief in predetermined allegiance or Blaise's tendency to do what was easy rather than what was right. Fundamentally, you always had a choice, some harder than others, but he could appreciate the difficulty in making the right ones. He thought of Malfoy whose father had recently been in Azkaban, shamed and exposed. Sympathy wasn't what came to mind, but Harry could understand the pressures Malfoy was under. Understand, but not accept.

Blaise had opened his eyes to a less dichotomous world, a world coloured in shades of grey, and it was that that had Harry so on edge. He'd been comfortable thinking of Voldemort and all he represented in terms of good and evil, not motivation and convenience. He was now dead certain that Blaise wasn't looking to help out of any true appreciation of doing what was right, but rather doing it because he felt it was required. Harry was half tempted to call him a coward, but Blaise seemed the type to see that as a non-insult. It was an alien thought process to Harry, but these moments of vulnerability that emerged, showing that Blaise was as flappable as everyone else, made it easier to do what Harry could only describe as blindly trust and hope for the best. In the way that Harry was learning of other viewpoints, Blaise could learn to shed his amoral, apathetic tendencies.

"What?" Blaise asked, his smile long gone and replaced with a lazy sneer that communicated no spite.

Harry shook his head, snapping himself out of his daze.

"Nothing," he said in a rush. "I'm just not used to seeing you smile like that."

A smirk that could only be described as Blaise appeared, and the tension in Harry eased.

"Count yourself lucky. Few do," he said.

"Maybe if you smile at the people you insult, they won't take it so badly," Harry said.

Blaise's smirk deepened. "Is this your clumsy way of telling me I'm attractive, Potter?"

Harry spluttered, realizing that he'd spent a good minute considering how attractive the Slytherin was.

"I'd be flattered if I was unaware. I suppose if we're to be friends," and Blaise looked horribly amused at the idea, "you'll do a good job of keeping my ego well-maintained."

"Oh, fuck off," Harry snapped with no heat. For a moment, he was taken aback by his own language, but Blaise laughed.

"So you do get pissed off," Blaise said with a pleased clasp of his hands in his lap. "And there I was starting to get worried that your outrage was reserved for Malfoy and Snape."

"You forgot the Ministry and Voldemort," Harry said.

"I'm really starting to think Gryffindors have a gift for stating the obvious," Blaise drawled.

"And Malfoy and Snape aren't?"

The dark-skinned teen frowned a little. "Point," he admitted, and Harry grinned in triumph, "but it's not my fault all your enemies are obvious."

"I'm perfectly happy with the obviousness of my enemies at the moment," Harry said.

"I want to see if I can get you to tell me to fuck off in public. Saint Potter with the potty mouth. It'll be great," Blaise said in a low murmur.

"I regret ever meeting you," Harry said, though he was betrayed by the smile on his face. "You're an absolute pissant. A complete tosser."

"Nice vocabulary, Potter," Blaise said, also fighting a smile. "Going to get all provincial on me? Maybe you'll go for an old classic and call me a bloody wanker next."

"You're not?" Harry asked on impulse.

He cringed when he realized what he said, but Harry decided it was worth it when Blaise choked in surprise, eyes wide with alarm.

"Potter, mind your own business. I'm not sure you're even old enough to have this conversation," Blaise said in a monotone that was betrayed by his twitching lips.

"And you are?" Harry said, tilting his head in question.

"Well, I've been seventeen for a couple of months. I've been using my wand without repercussions for quite a while now," Blaise said with a devilish smile.

Harry laughed despite himself. For how overbearing his sense of humour and banter was, Blaise was almost always entertaining. He had no sense of shame at all. Harry was almost envious of how comfortable in his own skin the Slytherin seemed to be.

"Surreal, isn't it?" Harry murmured.

"Definitely," Blaise said with a weary nod, "but I'm going to have as much fun with this as I can."

For a moment, Harry could see his potential future with vivid clarity. He was duelling Voldemort with Blaise looming over his shoulder, speculating in his smooth drawl about whether Voldemort's lack of nose might be the result of particularly aggressive inbreeding.

Blaise watched him laugh silently, the beginnings of a smile on his face.

"I suppose it's right about time for one of us to have a nervous breakdown," he snarked. "Do let me know when you finish so I can start." In response to Harry's bewildered look, he chuckled. "I just think it'd be best if we get them out of the way now."

Harry shook his head in disbelief but laughed all the same.

"He's a bloody arse," Ron snapped.

Given that Hermione didn't even bother to address Ron's language, Harry knew that he'd already lost this argument. Harry had returned to the Common Room hours after he'd left them on the fifth-floor corridor. Harry had spent a long time, sat there in that alcove, talking to Blaise. It'd started off with him confirming rumours about his end of year adventures to the inquisitive Slytherin. Despite Blaise's air of disinterest, he'd listened transfixed to Harry's account of the Chamber of Secrets and the basilisk, Voldemort's resurrection, and his fight in the Ministry. He'd left out all mention of Sirius, not feeling emotionally prepared to talk about him with Blaise yet. Then they'd spoken about random things: Quidditch; he'd wanted to go to the World Cup, but his family was having a gathering, Lupin; Daphne had figured out he was a werewolf after the Boggart lesson, Umbridge; Blaise hadn't been in the Inquisitorial Squad because Umbridge didn't like foreign-born students. He'd then spent a considerable amount of time outlining how repulsive he found her to Harry's amusement. It had been nice, a reminder of simpler times.

He put his finished essay and Blaise's draft into his bag, pleased that it'd been more useful than he'd expected. The Slytherin had a very concise yet descriptive way of writing that Harry understood and comprehended far more than Hermione's exhaustive approach. It wouldn't guarantee him an Outstanding in the way that Hermione's help would, but he felt like he'd actually learned something.

"Well, Harry?" Ron said in response to his continued silence.

Harry rolled his eyes.

"He's harmless," Harry retorted. "He's just… an arse."

"Enough about him," Hermione said. "What are we going to do?"

"I've been thinking," Ron said with a conspiratorial look, and Harry could hear an echo of Blaise in his mind clapping. "Why not restart the DA?"

"Study group? Really?" Hermione said. "We need something more serious."

"Then we can make it into something more serious," Harry said. "Blaise said he and his friends had made a list of people worth reaching out to for support."

"Where is it?"

"He said he'll give it to me at the Slug Club party, and we'd discuss it there."

"He's going to approach you in public?" Ron asked.

"You said you didn't talk about anything important!" Hermione said.

"Oh… right," Harry said with a shake of his head. "Yeah, Blaise thinks that all the hiding is pointless, as you thought Hermione, but he'll try and maintain a certain level of discretion."

"Plotting at Slughorn's party?" Ron asked, bewildered.

"Discretion?" Hermione added with a laugh. "There's nothing discreet about that."

"He's managed to slip under the public eye for a long time. I think he knows what he's doing," Harry said. He didn't doubt that they could keep what they were discussing private thanks to muffliato, but their connection, as Ron and Hermione were assuming, would be put into the public eye. Not that it wasn't already.

"He's… hard to miss now that I've really spoken to him," Ron admitted with a frown.

"He's striking," Hermione pointed out. Harry couldn't disagree, thinking back to that smile in the hollow.

"Striking, is he?" Ron asked dangerously.

Harry groaned, already far too familiar with Ron and Hermione's trademark slap-slap-kiss minus the kiss arguments. One day he was going to tell them to kiss, do something, and be done with it.

Hermione snorted. "Do you think Padma was free for the Yule Ball for no reason? Zabini rejected her."

Ron blushed a violent red and pointed accusingly at Hermione, voice tremulous with disbelief. "You don't keep up with gossip!" He accused.

"I live in a dorm with Parvati and Lavender," Hermione said with an eye roll. "I'd have to be completely deaf to not know about most of the rumours around the school."

Ron deflated with the mention of Lavender. It was still an awkward topic for the two of them considering how recently she and Ron had broken up, but things were improving.

"So… who'd he go with?" Harry asked, curious.

Hermione shrugged. "I don't think he went with anyone."

"Probably thought he was better than everyone," Ron said with a dismissive snort.

Harry could believe that.

"Anyway, I'm going to bed," Hermione said after rising to her feet. "We have a double free after Defence, we'll plan then."

She ascended the stairs to her dorm with a murmured goodnight, and they did the same. Entering their dorm, Ron turned to face him, finished essay in hand, and wished him a goodnight before moving to his bed. Returning the goodnight with a yawn, Harry walked towards his bed and changed for bed.

Harry lay in his four-poster, mind swirling with the developments of the day. The meeting with the Slytherins, the talk with Blaise, and ideas of where to go from here. What Harry needed was an individual plan. He needed something to make him feel like he was at least preparing for the future fight he'd have with Voldemort. Remembering his time preparing for the Triwizard, he decided a visit to the Library would be a good start for at least learning new, useful spells for duelling. That decided, he finally allowed the beckoning embrace of sleep take him.


	6. luck is not chance, it's toil (4)

"Which one?"

He began to point at his options: Acromantula silk dress robes in a slate grey.

Tracey's comment was almost instantaneous. "Fancy, if not predictable – it'll look nice, but I know you, Blaise. You like clothes that are more close-fitting than dress robes."

Blaise didn't bother denying that and removed it and the other two sets of dress robes with a muttered Pack spell and pointed to the next outfit: white trousers, black button up, and a fitted, ventless, double-breasted tan blazer, a risky choice with the cut being far from British Wizarding fare. Pockets were pretty much a given in Wizarding attire, so jetted pockets along with the lack of vents for those who knew anything about fashion, which British wizards didn't in Blaise's mind, would signal that this style was both Muggle and Italian. Still, Blaise had long accepted that his fellow Slytherins would see his fashion tastes as "Continental barbarism". Looking at the pretty brunette sat on his bed, he was thankful that at least Tracey had had a balanced upbringing and could appreciate other aesthetics.

"Yes, but with a jumper underneath, not a shirt. It's May Day, not a wedding. The nice woollen one you were wearing during your little slip with Potter would be perfect."

Blaise hummed, almost agreeing with Tracey. Flicking his wand at the jumper in question, he nodded to himself at its now warm cream colour and sat down to put on his socks. Tracey contented herself with inspecting the rest of the clothes Blaise had laid on the bed.

"Definitely the one we picked," she muttered to herself.

Halfway through his first sock, Blaise jolted to attention at the sound of someone clearing their throat at the doorway.

"What are you doing up here?" Theo asked, large front teeth worrying at his upper lip. He turned to Blaise, and the beginnings of a blush appeared at the sight of Blaise's near nakedness. "And why are you half-naked?"

Electing to give his dormmate a withering gaze, Blaise continued pulling up his socks. It should have been obvious to Theo that he was getting dressed.

"Don't be rude, Nott. I'm just about to consummate my relationship with Blaise here," Tracey said, none of her devil-may-care humour present despite her words. "and I don't appreciate voyeurs."

Blaise was certain that the only thing stopping Theo from going for his wand was the stack of books in his hands.

"Listen, you – " Theo began in warning.

Blaise moved from his bent over position, aware of the dungeon chill on his nipples. "Be careful with what you say or do next, Theo," he said, folding his arms across his chest.

Theo stared at him, looking with visible determination above his waist. Blaise stared back, removing his arms and putting his erecting nipples into view. Tracey cackled as the weedy brunette half-ran back down the stairs.

"You actually used your body as a weapon," Tracey said between violent giggles. "You said he was a prude, but I didn't think it'd be that bad."

"You'd think I was wearing a jockstrap," Blaise said with a laugh.

"He'd have fainted if you were. Boxer briefs seem to be more than enough to send him running," Tracey said, watching the entrance to the dorm in disbelief. "What a prude."

Blaise didn't think it was all prudishness. He recalled many a time Theo glancing a little longer than necessary at his body when returning from a shower, and if he wore his towel a little lower on his hips than decent, that was only for Blaise to know and Theo to rather transparently appreciate or envy. The last thing he wanted was to give Tracey more ammo to get herself cursed. Even Draco at rare times could be won over by her quick wit and irreverent humour, but Theo's prejudices ran a lot deeper than Malfoy's which was actually quite impressive now that he thought about it.

For a moment, Blaise felt deeply ashamed of the things he'd heard Draco, his idiots, and Theo say about Tracey in their dorm. Things he'd heard and ignored. It was a stealthy feeling, creeping up on him with each moment of further introspection, and he considered whether it made him a bad friend. He didn't think Tracey would care, but his thoughts wandered to Potter. The Gryffindor would no doubt think him a coward for not standing up for his friends. In this instance, Blaise was inclined to agree. If Tracey and Daphne were willing to throw their lot in with him, he should have enough courage, enough sense of decency to stand up for them in turn. It was a humbling thought.

"Well, that was amusing," Tracey murmured, rising to her feet.

Blaise turned away from the entrance to the dorm with a sigh and settled back down to pull his trousers on. "Know what you're wearing?"

"You bet," Tracey said with the type of mischievous smile on her face that never boded well.

Taking in the beautiful ornate floral designs, a cornucopia of muted cherry blossoms, camellias, and chrysanthemums against cerulean silk, Blaise sighed. Merlin, God… anyone, someone give him strength. The Common Room was quite full, and the majority of people sitting around were staring at Tracey, feeding into her rebellious tendencies.

"Do you like it?" Tracey asked, looking up through her eyelashes at him. She was daring him to say no, and Blaise was nothing if not a fool.

"A kimono," Blaise stated, eyebrows threatening to escape into his hairline.

"A kimono," Tracey confirmed with glee. "Look, Japanese silkworm silk and the obi has smoothed kappa scales woven into silk. My aunt's hosts gave it to her as a gift during her last diplomatic mission."

"Morbid," Blaise said, caught between disgust and curiosity. "Let's see."

She handed the obi to Blaise, showing him where to feel with a quick rub of her thumb. Feeling for himself the fish-scale like sensation in the seams of the otherwise beautiful black silk, he decided that it was less disconcerting than he'd expected. He didn't understand the point of it, but regardless, it looked nice.

"I wish Daphne were here to see this," Blaise said with a smile. "She'd be horrified."

Tracey's eyes bulged in response, and she began to tie the obi around her waist in an intricate knot.

"She would be more than horrified," she said with a disturbed giggle. "She'd have me under a stupefy before I could even think of walking out of the dorm, and she'd be shoving me into one of her expensive dresses."

"Thankfully, she has Tori to distract her in the Library," Blaise said.

Pansy appeared at Tracey's shoulder, taking in Blaise's getup with a confused squint.

"Lost, Pansy?" Blaise asked.

"You dress like a Muggle, Blaise," Parkinson said.

Perhaps she thought that Blaise would rise to the disgust-ridden emphasis she'd put on "muggle", but Blaise stared at her until she broke eye contact.

"An attractive muggle," Tracey added, unknowingly inviting Pansy to get to the point of her impromptu visit – criticising Tracey's outfit. Blaise frowned at her, already moving to remove the hand that had pinched at the fabric of Tracey's kimono.

"Ah, ah," Blaise said with warning. "You can look, but you can't touch."

Pansy took the hint before Blaise had to make contact to his relief.

"Tracey. What is this?" Pansy asked. The ugly sneer on her face left no illusions to her opinion on Tracey's floral ensemble.

"This is a kimono, you troglodyte," Tracey said blithely, smoothing the fabric around where she'd tied the obi.

"What did you call me?"

"A cave dweller."

"Excuse me?"

"One who dwells in dark, enclosed spaces."

"One day you'll get yours, Tracey," Pansy ground out. The only thing that betrayed her amusement was the fact she hadn't walked away or threatened to hex Tracey. Yet.

Blaise didn't understand their relationship; Pansy didn't bother to hide her malice or temper her attitude, and Tracey rolled with it. Daphne had been telling Tracey to put Pansy in her place for years, but Tracey was weird, seeming to enjoy Pansy's constant switch between hot and cold behaviour towards her.

"I long for the day," Tracey said, still a picture of serene pleasantness. "Now, I have a date with tall, dark and handsome here."

At this, Parkinson smiled viciously at him. "Finally settled for this half-blood trollop, Blaise?"

"I resent that," Tracey said. Her tone was still the same, but Blaise wasn't unaware of how much she hated people using her half-blood status against her.

Blaise was more than a little pissed at Parkinson's comment. It was usually more Daphne's job to deal with people being rude about Tracey's blood status and personality, but after that moment upstairs, Blaise was not having it anymore. Parkinson should be kissing the floor that Tracey walked on.

He stepped up to the petite girl, lip curling at the lingering pleasure in her eyes at a barb well placed. Having observed her explosive temper in action a few dozen times, he was smart enough to palm his wand before he did what he should have done months, if not years, ago. "Well, I'd be settling if she was anywhere as laughably pathetic as you." Blaise revelled in the slapped expression that overtook her previous glee, and he found the visceral rush of saying things he'd long hidden beneath stoicism and apathy far too tantalising. He continued, unabated and far too aware of the smile on his face. "Kindly fuck off and pine for Draco, and whilst you're at it, wipe off the look and stench of lonely bitch," he said, punctuating his disgust with a snort. "It's unseemly, particularly on a depressingly repugnant individual like yourself."

There was an echoing silence throughout the entire Common Room as he finished. Unconcerned with their audience or Pansy, he turned away from the fury that had long overtaken Pansy's gobsmacked expression, instead taking in Tracey's response. There wasn't any pleasure in her expression, but Blaise prayed that the unknown emotion in her eyes was grim satisfaction.

"Who do you think you are, you stuck up fop?!" Pansy shrieked, scrambling to get her wand out. Blaise watched her, unimpressed, and already ready to curse her. "Is it not enough that you lose your fucking mind and help Potter? I'll have - "

Tracey had her wand out, watching Pansy's continued ineffectual attempt to speak with a blank expression.

"Another time, Pansy," Tracey said with a playful wink, though the effect was more unsettling than tension-breaking. Her voice darkened. "You should be able to speak in a few seconds, so I wouldn't go for your wand. As much as I like our little talks, I won't let you try and curse Blaisey-boy or myself."

Pansy wasn't entirely stupid. She was capable of determining that two is greater than one, and she chose to walk away, but not without a loud huff and a mutter that sounded a lot like 'Italian faggot'. Blaise, aware of Pansy's penchant for slurs when pushed, didn't even blink, but he still half considered the idea of hexing her with her back turned. Not wanting to sink that low, at least not here, he instead took Tracey by the hand and made for the exit.

Stood outside the entrance to their Common Room, Blaise groaned. He should have tempered his rant a bit more. He wasn't stupid enough to believe this was over as Pansy had a vindictive streak a mile wide.

"Really laid it on thick there, Blaise," Tracey said with a snort.

Relieved that Tracey's moment of seriousness had ended, Blaise led them at a brisk pace to Slughorn's office. The castle was near empty at this time, and the occasional student they saw, some also dressed up for Slughorn's party, and others returning from a late class or study session, stared at them. Blaise returned their stares with every bit of disdain he could muster.

"She had it coming," he said as they began to ascend the Grand Staircase.

He wasn't afraid of stairs after his accident, but he was now obsessive about making sure no one stepped into his personal space when using them. He was spending more time watching the hem of Tracey's dress than the steps ahead. Tracey didn't comment on his habit, but her grip did tighten a little.

"Still. You should have stopped after the pathetic bit," Tracey retorted, and she frowned at him. Blaise hadn't even stopped to think that she may find how he'd reacted earlier to be out of character, fixated on the idea of her appreciating him for standing up for her. "Where did this even come from anyway? Pansy has said far worse to me, and you'd just watch."

It was a lot like swallowing poison, evoking a horrid sensation in his stomach, to hear Tracey highlight that. Like a slave to impulse and feeling like a traitor to himself with Tracey's hand in his own, he said the only thing that described his current feelings.

"You're my best friend," Blaise stated, and he elaborated, half-panicked by the vulnerability he was displaying, "and I don't have Daphne's forbidding look quite down."

Tracey didn't say anything in response for a long time, following him towards Slughorn's office, and before they went inside, she squeezed his hand before letting go. The smile on her face was bittersweet, but she leaned up to kiss him on the cheek with an affectionate pat on his cheek. Blaise stared back, heart racing with a mix of unwelcome anxiety and apprehension.

"I don't know exactly what Potter cursed you with, but it's a good start," she said slowly, staring at the wall behind him. "Part of me, a large part of me actually, resents him for getting such a change out of you so quickly, but how could I hold onto that type of feeling when you're here, being my friend for once."

She met his eyes with none of the confusion and shame that Blaise was certain was being broadcast in his own, and she smiled daringly at him. "That look in your eyes? A damn good fucking start."

Blaise rolled his eyes at her.

"Bad," she said with a slap of his forearm.

Snorting, he smiled as brilliantly as he could at her.

"Better, but are you trying to make me swoon?" She asked, hand on hip and batting her eyelashes at him.

"Trying?" He purred back at her, and he lowered his voice to a comically low rumble. "You think I need to try?"

Tracey giggled helplessly in response, and Blaise leaned further in with a victorious smirk at the faint blush along her neck. He intended to detour at the last second to kiss her on the cheek.

"Are you – are you going in?" A squeaky voice asked behind them.

Not recognising the younger student, looking at them with a violent blush, Blaise nodded his head. It hadn't been the wisest idea to look as if he were on the cusp of snogging Tracey next to Slughorn's party, especially in front of virginal eyes.

After smoothing herself down, she gave his hand a soft tug. "Shall we?"

Taking her hand back in his own, and not commenting on the blush still lingering on her neck, he led them past several other gawking students. Blaise accepted that the rumour mill would have plenty to run with tomorrow.

Squeezing past the growing crowd at the threshold of the room, they found an unoccupied table for two to the side. Slughorn's office wasn't as palatially decorated as it had been for the Christmas party, but the hand-forged crystal cutlery was present once more, shimmering against the white velvet covering the tables. Stood centre-stage, Slughorn was tinkering with a wine fountain which had been fashioned to look like a maypole. Several taps of his wand later, Slughorn lifted his glass to one of the streamers and red wine poured into it when contact was made. It was a brilliant bit of Charm work, Blaise realized.

Clearing her throat, Tracey tapped his calf with her shoe.

"So..." Tracey drawled, and her eyebrows wagged with pronounced exaggeration. "Potter."

Blaise stared at his friend, taking in her coy eyes and broad smirk with utter bewilderment and more than a little annoyance. Even though he'd only turned up to Slughorn's masturbatory party to meet Potter, he'd like to have been able to think about him and his gaggle of idiots as little as possible. Especially after the moment in the corridor – it stung to realise that he'd needed Potter's brand of foolish naivety to realise how much he'd been letting down Tracey.

"What about him?" He asked.

Not knowing it was possible, Blaise watched her eyebrows speed up their chaotic dance.

"Plan on fucking him?"

Blaise blinked at his friend, struggling to comprehend what she'd said. "What?" To his own ears, his voice sounded faint - as if he were underwater. "What did you say?"

"You. Harry Potter. Shagging," she said, enunciating each word as if he were as hard of hearing as Madam Marchbanks from their OWLs last year.

"No?" Blaise retorted before the words seemed to snap into place, making horrible, clear sense. "Hardly."

"That wasn't a very convincing no," Tracey sang.

Blaise laughed low in his throat. The idea was absurd. "Fairly sure he's straight, and I don't do suicidal Gryffindor."

"Well, you do Ravenclaws - obsessive Terry and proud Padma," she said, holding two fingers down.

Blaise sighed, lamenting that this was likely to be a long night. He hadn't even had to deal with Potter and his fools yet.

"Beauxbaton students - that neurotic redhead with the French braid, Muggle boys and girls - and do not deny that because I spent most of last summer with you in London," she said with a childish finger on her lip.

She laughed at his rolling eyes, and Blaise somehow managed to maintain his silence. Tracey had spent most of the summer in some maudlin romance with a half-blood wizard from Ilvermorny, so Blaise was a little surprised to discover she'd had time to take notice of his, to be blunt, fuck buddies.

"Now, I've saved the best for last. Hufflepuffs - we can't forget bicurious Zacharias," she half-sang.

Tracey smirked, without a doubt proud of remembering most of the people Blaise had been intimate with. Blaise was half-tempted to mention the drunken fumble he'd shared with Daphne after Slughorn's Christmas party but decided against it. They'd both sworn to never speak of it to anyone, especially Tracey.

"I think I've done a great job of forgetting him," Blaise said, "and I'd appreciate if you forget about Potter too."

"Now you're choosing to be picky? He's handsome!" Tracey paused for a moment, almost seeming unsure of her opinion of Potter's looks.

Blaise was loath to admit that Potter was pleasant on the eyes, especially without the hideous glasses. Thinking of how close they'd sat together not even twenty-four hours ago, Blaise couldn't help but recall those gem-like eyes, watching him unerringly, and it didn't take a major stretch of his imagination to picture them dilating with pleasure under Blaise's touch. The idea was more appealing that it should've been.

"A bit intense though," Tracey added sometime during his reverie. "Which is why you two are perfect for each other."

Now, Blaise was worried. "Excuse me?"

"You can be intense together," Tracey stated. "You can smoulder like always." She squinted and sucked in her jaw, looking more ridiculous than usual, and Blaise choked violently in response to her crude impersonation of his looks. "He can monologue about how the Dark Lord eats Hippogriff shit, and that's his choice, while looking heroic."

The only thing that stopped Blaise from going into hysterics was the fact that he had to maintain some sense of decorum.

"I really, really need Daphne to keep you in check," Blaise said after he managed to swallow the hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat.

"She can't keep me in check," Tracey said with a dismissive hand wave. "I'm wild and untamed."

Blaise stared at her, about to mention the many times Daphne had kept Tracey in check with carefully placed insults and well-cast jinxes but knew that that was a waste of time. Instead, he surveyed the room, taking in all the late arrivals. Seeing the beard of the groundskeeper, standing tall over Potter and his friends, he sighed in relief. Potter had deigned to grace them all with his presence, and the half-giant had given him an idea.

"I better fetch the half-giant. He may have an abomination on hand to cross breed you with," Blaise said with what he knew to be a wicked glint in his eyes.

"Blaise!" Tracey hissed.

"Now you're the one being picky," Blaise retorted with a put-upon expression. "I'm sure he has a lovely monster, lots of teeth and a horrid stench worthy of Pansy of course, with whom you can settle down and have lovely, wild and untamed monster babies."

Tracey pouted and hailed a waiter for a glass of water.

"Not my fault you've suddenly decided to be picky," Tracey said, taking a hasty sip of her water. "I mean, I was always under the impression that if you found someone attractive, you'd make a move."

"You make me sound like an incubus," Blaise said with a snort.

Tracey's eyebrows furrowed together, and she eyed him curiously. "Well, you do seem to always end up in someone's bed, you're bisexual. Is it really – "

"I don't have magical creature blood!" he snapped for the umpteenth time.

At least he didn't think he did. There'd been rumours since his second stepfather that his mother had succubus heritage, siren heritage, and all kinds of heritage, but like most rumours they were unsubstantiated. Still, there was a tiny part of him that wondered.

Tracey's hands rose in placation like they always did, but she seemed to think better of it this time. Instead, she brought out her wand and conjured a white flag with a genteel flick of her cherry-blossom embroidered wrist. She shook it slowly, a baleful expression on her face.

"Forgiven. I suppose," Blaise said.

She vanished the flag with a grand arcing motion and placed her wand back in a fold of her kimono. Blaise actually missed the comical restraint she'd shown earlier. It was something Tracey could stand to learn.

"So what exactly do you want with Potter?" She asked.

Not sure if he wanted to delve into this topic, Blaise did what he did best. Obfuscate. "To help him?"

Tracey tutted and poked him in the ribs with a well-manicured nail. Holding in a flinch and giving her a gentle push in response, Blaise glared at her. He'd always been confused as to why he let Tracey take so many liberties with his person, but he was self-aware enough to know he at least liked the casualness with which she treated him. A little physicality was what came with the territory.

"Well, you've been a little less dour lately," Tracey said. "So again, what exactly do you want from him?"

Blaise made to shrug, but he knew that Tracey deserved the truth.

"He makes me feel important," Blaise murmured, finding himself preoccupied with the stem of his cocktail glass. "I feel like I'm a part of something greater than myself or the limitations around our House."

"He makes you feel like a good person?" Tracey asked. For all her apparent childishness and lack of tact, Tracey was always a good listener, and she could read him better than most.

Blaise was about to respond when Slughorn cleared his throat, sounding over the murmur of conversation thanks to his Amplifying Charm.

"It is great to have you all here. I'll keep it short as this is a very informal do, so as always," Slughorn said with a broad smile, gesticulating his glass of wine into the air, "a toast to Hogwarts' brightest and best!"

Filled wine glasses appeared in front of every seated person's hand. Slughorn had always had a love of showmanship.

"To Slug Club!" came the joyous response, resounding powerfully in the acoustics of Slughorn's large office.

Feeling Slughorn's gaze settling on him, he lifted his own glass to his lips.

"To Slug Club," Blaise murmured dispassionately into his glass.

Tracey's eyes swept through the room, taking inventory of the Hogwarts alumni and students toasting. Turning to him, a bewildered expression on her face, she nudged him with urgency. "So, why did you join this cult?" she asked.

Accepting hors d'oeuvres from a passing waiter, he considered Tracey's question. Daphne had been invited after the Christmas party, but she'd declined. Slughorn had been a little curt with him in the meeting following that, likely believing that Blaise had had a hand in it. He'd told her to head for the hills and not look back.

"When Slughorn decided that the mystique around my mother was my talent," Blaise said.

"You're pretty enough," Tracey said with a sniff after the furore had died away, replaced with the murmur of conversation and tinkling cutlery, "and you're the best in the year at Astronomy."

"It also helps that Granger is no longer taking Astronomy," Blaise said.

He chewed on his hors d'oeuvre, bruschetta sprinkled with golden salt. Blaise was thankful that even if had to suffer through these farcical events, he was able to eat some Italian food. The British fare day in day out was enough to make him hate all things roasted.

"Look around, Blaise. Take in your new… admirers." She tipped her head to her left before starting to eat her own hors d'oeuvre, a prawn summer roll.

Taking in her amused smirk, Blaise sighed and did as told. The demented Ravenclaw, Luna he thought her name was, was gazing at him. She was sat with Potter, the little Weasley, the boorish Weasley (had he and Granger finally gotten a hint?), Granger, and Longbottom (who must have been invited by the little Weasley). Raising an eyebrow in question to her unsettling gaze, she waved happily back at him, throwing him completely for a loop and bringing her friends' attention to his and Tracey's table. Feeling like he'd been out-manoeuvred, he turned back to Tracey who was watching him as she dabbed a napkin at her lips. He obsessively ignored the burning brand of Potter's gaze on his back.

"I'm so glad you're making friends!" Tracey cried with a wink over his head, likely at the Ravenclaw. She turned back to him, hazel eyes alight with mischief. "It's like you're a whole new Gryffindor Blaise!"

"Tracey," he snapped.

"Blaisey," she sang back.

Inhaling through his nose, he closed his eyes hoping that Tracey would have disappeared by the time he reopened up them. Luck wasn't smiling upon him as she was still sat in front of him, smiling like a loon. "Do you remember what happened the last time you called Daphne Daphney?"

"No, actually," Tracey said, coiling her hair around a finger. Blaise watched the humour on his friend's face with a mixture of exasperation and fondness. "What'd she say?"

"Well, it was less what she said, but more about what she did," Blaise explained.

"I still don't recall," Tracey said, grinning now with mirth.

"It was a fetching pair of hooves she gave you," Blaise offered with his own smile.

"She did say she hated hearing her name with a neigh at the end," Tracey said with a laugh.

"Four times," Blaise reminded.

Tracey tutted. "I'm hard of hearing sometimes. Okay?"

Blaise reflected on his friends and their unorthodox ways of communicating: he through wisecracks and pointed comments, Daphne through cold logic and the occasional hex, and Tracey through her trademark tactless fun. That aside, Blaise found himself drawing parallels between them and Potter's trio. They both had a focal point – Potter for his own, Tracey for his, and they both involved a level of mutual dependence. Without Tracey, Blaise was sure he and Daphne would have happily parroted the blood supremacy line that characterised their house; while it would be out of convenience for himself, Daphne would likely have believed it. Becoming friends with Tracey had challenged her understanding of the world. The nature of dependence was different though for Potter. It was clear that Potter needed both Granger and Weasley. Granger for her encyclopaedic knowledge and overbearing hand – it was clear, even from Slytherin, that Granger spent more time mothering and hounding Potter than treating him like an equal. That was where Weasley came in, providing a large family and constant entertainment which would be attractive to an orphan. Really, it had been almost sad how much Potter had clung to Blaise's sense of humour, almost like a lifeline, but it made sense considering the life he had led. Hearing those stories had both intrigued and horrified Blaise. More the latter, though. It was hard to consider that Potter was younger than him yet had experienced so much more danger.

"Professor incoming," Tracey muttered.

They both rose to their feet, and Blaise plastered on his best high society mask. Tracey, at his side, straightened out her sleeves and fought the urge to fold her arms. She settled for wrapping her arm around his waist, and he stifled a grunt with hard-fought practice.

"Ah, Blaise, my dear boy," Slughorn said taking Blaise's free hand in a robust handshake.

"Professor," he said, dipping his head in greeting. Inside, he was a little confused as to when he'd become on first name basis with his Potions Professor. Deciding rather easily that it was Potter's fault, he finished his glass with a slow sip before placing it back on the table.

"I'm ever so glad you could make it," and the Professor turned towards Tracey, taking in her floral kimono with an air of polite amusement. "How exotic, Ms Davis. You're looking stunning tonight."

Tracey smirked at Slughorn.

"Thanks, Professor, and thank you for hosting such a lovely party on May Day," Tracey said with a brief curtsey.

Slughorn laughed, giving her a quick handshake before gesturing to their seats which they retook. "The pleasure is all mine. I'm ever so glad that Blaise chose to bring you and your lovely kimono," Slughorn replied, taking the free seat at their table. Taking a seat resulted in the belt restraining his gut to enter severe duress, contorting under the Professor's girth. Blaise watched this morbidly curious as to how much Slughorn had paid to have his clothes custom-tailored for his particular brand of rotundness.

"My aunt got it for me after a diplomatic mission with the Japanese Ministry," she said with a playful pose in her seat.

"Your aunt?"

Blaise's eyebrows rose in question, feeling it was unheard of for Slughorn to not know all the students from Wizarding backgrounds' families inside out.

"She was terrible at Potions and a Muggleborn, so I don't fault you for not knowing her," Tracey said, sounding almost as diplomatic as Blaise imagined her diplomat aunt would, but having known Tracey for so long, Blaise was well attuned with her subtle sardonicism. "She works as an envoy for the British Ministry in the ICW."

Slughorn spluttered indignantly, clearly horrified that he'd missed a student with an important relative, but he took in Tracey with the fanatical gleam he sometimes had when looking at Potter or when Blaise offered more information about his mother than Slughorn had expected. Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Blaise sat back and waited for Tracey to be… collected.

"Elizabeth Houghton?" Slughorn asked after a slight pause. "Your late mother's younger sister?"

"The very same," Tracey confirmed.

Slughorn was peering at her as if deciding how best to appeal to Tracey, but the sight of a tall, blonde bouffant looming over Slughorn's shoulder allowed Blaise to give Tracey a well-deserved out. He hoped he didn't regret this.

"Mr Beaumont," Blaise stated.

With a billow of sapphire blue dress robes, the tall wizard stepped to Slughorn's side.

"Ah, Blaise. Lovely," the wiry blonde said, sounding as if their meeting was anything but lovely, though his tone picked up at the sight of Tracey and his faint French accent surged forth, gaining admirable strength. "et toi, belle femme?"

Tracey's eyebrows rose, but she smiled all the same. "Tracey Davis. Blaise's date for the evening."

"Louis Beaumont. Creative Director of Witch Weekly," and he bent over to place a featherlight kiss on the back of Tracey's hand, luxuriating in the faint blush that covered Tracey's cheeks when he pulled away. Blaise was deeply disappointed in Tracey's reaction. Beaumont turned back to Blaise, handsome face flinty once more, "and I am here with the arduous task of convincing Blaise to a shoot. Once again."

Slughorn laughed uproariously at Blaise's side. "Come on, Louis. You need to appeal to his vanity!"

Tracey giggled at Slughorn's embarrassing frankness, and Blaise resumed his impersonation of a gargoyle. Inside, he lamented the state of affairs that'd resulted in his ego becoming everyone's punching bag. Again, he decided it was smartest, and easiest, to blame Potter.

The wizard ran a hand through his hair. "I did, Horace. I spent many minutes lavishing praise on his looks and his style. I told him just how much my readers would love him if he did a cover for us, the monetary compensation, the contacts that such an opportunity would get him. He looked as he does now."

Slughorn peered at Blaise's face, moustache twitching to-and-fro with well-mannered humour. "Troublesome."

"Ah, Blaise's patented 'you're boring me and are a waste of space' look," Tracey said with the wisdom of a sage. "Exposure makes it more manageable."

Blaise frowned a little. Fighting the urge to conjure a mirror, he convinced himself that his pleasant mask of affability was still up.

"A long exposure then, I'm assuming," Beaumont said with a beady eye at Blaise. Blaise smiled thinly in response. "Well, that isn't the smile worth a pretty galleon."

"That's all I can manage sadly," Blaise said, maintaining the unworthy smile.

Tracey, like the she-devil she was, just stood there, lips twitching at his predicament.

"I saw you and Tracey over there smiling up a storm, so I'm not exactly sure who you're kidding," Beaumont said. He sighed deeply, robes expanding with the motion as if he were a balloon. "Look, free time is valuable and in short supply for me, pretty boy. Yes or no?"

"Now, now. No need to be rude," Slughorn said, sounding far too amused for Blaise's liking. Perhaps this was his revenge for Blaise masterfully avoiding any particularly probing questions about his mother.

It wasn't an unattractive offer. Blaise was well aware of how susceptible Witch Weekly's audience was to a handsome face and a pretty smile – he had noticed how insidious Lockhart's reach had been before his accident with Potter. It could set him up for life (not that he already wasn't), but he'd reflexively declined at the Christmas party out of a niggling feeling. Now, he was sure it was because it was an easy option. It represented him not utilising any talents he had, relying entirely on genetics. He wanted to be more than a beautiful face. Blaise wanted to be someone spoken of for something other than their exotic looks, muscled body, or worst of all, their mother. Thinking of Potter and the adulation that met his every utterance and movement, Blaise accepted that perhaps, he just wanted to be special. He didn't want fame; having spent years in the same castle as Potter, he was certain of that. He didn't need more gold. What he did want was to be a person of merit, someone in his own right and not an echo of his mother.

It was with that all in mind, Blaise decided to cut to the chase instead of stonewalling the French wizard for an hour like he did at the Christmas party, slowly driving Daphne insane. "I want more for myself than to be a cover model," Blaise said. "Thank you for your generous offer, Mr Beaumont, but – "

Beaumont sighed with relief. "Thank Merlin. Now I can tell Matilda you rejected the offer with an actual reason." A genuine smile crossed his face as he turned to Tracey. "A pleasure to meet you, Tracey. Best of luck with him," he said with a grave nod at Blaise.

"Oh, we're just friends. If there were another boy who looked like Blaise but crucially wasn't Blaise, I wouldn't be here," she explained with a crooked smile. Leaning against his shoulder, she sidled up even closer to him. "Still, he makes great eye candy though."

Blaise laughed hard at that, though he was more than a little offended by the look of profound clarity on Beaumont's face and Slughorn's belly laugh.

"Horace. Always a pleasure," Beaumont said with a robust two-handed shake of the Professor's hand.

"Likewise! I'm hoping to do another get together before the end of term, so will I be able to see you there? Hopefully with dear Matilda, of course," Slughorn said.

Beaumont scratched at his scraggly goatee in thought. "If I can get our dear editor away from her desk, I don't see why not. Should be easier than convincing Blaise over here."

Slughorn smiled pleasantly. "Maybe one day, Louis."

"Doubt it," he said, shaking his head. "Anyway, Floo still open? How you managed to convince Dumbledore for an open connection in times like these is beyond me, but you always work your magic, Horace."

"Good evening, Louis," Slughorn said, lifting his glass to his ex-student with a sly smirk worthy of his House.

Blaise was half-tempted to smirk himself at the put-out expression on the wizard's face at Slughorn's misdirection.

"Have a good one, Horace. Give that one lots of homework for me," Beaumont said.

He gave Blaise one last cold look before making his way to the fireplace, but not without one last refill at the wine fountain.

"He was here just to speak with me?" Blaise asked, looking for confirmation.

Slughorn nodded. "Of course. Louis is a busy man! Lead creative editor at Witch Weekly, and he's trying to expand operations to France. Very ambitious boy. One of my favourite Ravenclaws. He's always had a flair with a quill."

Sensing a lengthy spiel about other favourites in the works, Blaise's lips thinned, but Slughorn instead turned to face Tracey.

"But enough about him, would you mind if I spoke to Blaise for a second, Ms Davis?" Slughorn asked kindly.

Tracey nodded pleasantly. "Of course, Professor."

Quickly recognizing Bobbin stood by the wine fountain, Tracey strode through the crowd to the short Hufflepuff, having identified a good target for her form of harassment that masqueraded as conversation.

Half-expecting Slughorn's disappointment, he looked at him out of his peripheral vision to see a pleased expression on his face. Blaise was a little disconcerted at Slughorn's pleasure at his decision. There was no naivete in Blaise's mind regarding Slughorn's reason for including him in his trophy case of people – he was one of the best-looking students in the school with a ridiculously wealthy mother, so Blaise had his hackles up with the fact that Slughorn hadn't even pushed for the opportunity that he'd gone out of his way to arrange for him.

"You did an incredibly decent thing for Harry," Slughorn began, blindsiding Blaise with the topic. He'd expected some repudiation or confusion behind that mask of civility. Slughorn had been pushing for him to take that modelling opportunity since November. "It was an awful fright that morning to see him like that."

"I didn't really do much," Blaise said, remembering far too vividly Slughorn's blanch at the mangled mess of Potter's leg.

"Don't sell yourself short, Blaise," Slughorn said, peering strangely at him. "Poppy was ever so pleased with your calm response and fortitude."

Blaise gasped in surprise before remembering that his version of panicking was significantly less vocal than other people's, and at the time, following Pomfrey's instructions had been a better idea than staring dumbly at Potter's bloody femur. He'd done more than enough of that after they'd landed.

"I just did what was needed," he said with an uncomfortable shrug.

"You may not see it as much, but what matters is that you chose to do it," Slughorn said.

Again, Potter's rant about the importance of choice was rearing its ugly head but hearing it from Slughorn was a different matter. Behind all the bluster, the laughable covetousness of important and noteworthy people, Slughorn was a clever, accomplished wizard. Not one who'd survived, as Potter described himself, due to luck.

"Maybe, Professor," Blaise offered, not sure whether he was ready or wanted to commit to such a viewpoint.

Slughorn shook his head at him, a conflicted expression overcoming his usual joviality. "Perhaps I've done little to foster goodwill between us, Blaise. I've been ever so crude in my attempts to learn more about your mother, showing you as a person little interest. Will you forgive me?"

Blaise was a little confused as to where this came from, but several possibilities ran through his mind. Maybe Slughorn believed that he'd rejected Beaumont and his sudden sentimentality out of some form of spite. It was a reasonable conclusion, but Blaise had spent most of his life being treated as an extension of his mother. He'd long come to peace with it. Delving deeper, he considered that Slughorn may at least be attempting to manipulate him. Blaise could also be paranoid.

"It's no big issue, Professor," Blaise said with a pleasant smile. "Everyone I meet tends to be more interested in my mother."

Blaise let the unsaid 'I expected nothing better from you' sit for a moment. It was difficult for him to fight the smile of triumph threatening to appear on his lips at the genuine remorse on Slughorn's face.

"The second time this week I've been humbled by someone not even half my age," Slughorn said with a wan smile, looking at his empty glass with a hollow laugh. "This time I'm not even drunk!"

Blaise's face contorted in confusion. "Sir?"

"So much like his mother. Such a decent young man," he said, staring into the crowd of people behind them. "I have such deep regrets, Blaise, but returning to teaching has proven not to be one of them."

Blaise stared, baffled. Was this the moment that he announced that he was joining the Dark Lord or something equally drastic? He'd never been good at comforting people, and he didn't really want to comfort Slughorn, so he addressed him by honorifics, praying that their teacher-student relationship would be restored.

"Professor… are you alright?" Blaise asked, praying that his concern sounded sincere.

Slughorn just laughed off his concern, acting as if his sudden emotion of the last minute hadn't occurred with the quick, casual look at his pocket watch.

"Don't mind the senility of this old man, Blaise," he said with a wise smile, giving him a nod before rising to his feet. "Enjoy the party, and I look forward to seeing you bright and early in Potions tomorrow."

Still bewildered by Slughorn's behaviour, but thinking it wise not to dwell on it, he looked for Tracey. He pushed through the crush of people gathered about the wine fountain. Blaise found her in a corner, talking a mile a minute with Bobbin who was nursing a glass of wine and a silly grin.

"It was nice to talk to you, Melinda," Tracey said with a smile. "Sadly, my favourite accessory is here."

Bobbin giggled at Blaise, but it faded quickly at Blaise's flat expression. "And I'm here to take my least favourite fan," he drawled.

"Be nice," Tracey said before turning back to Bobbin with a graceful wave. "See you around."

"Bye, Tracey," Bobbin said.

Back at the safety of their table, Blaise rested his head on a hand. He felt emotionally exhausted by not just the events of the day, but the week. He looked with unrestrained want at the exit, but there was still a whole conversation with Potter to get through. Spying two seats available at Potter's table, Blaise decided it was time to take the plunge before Snape appeared and regaled him with tales of how a sentient bottle of shampoo had bullied him at Hogwarts or something.

"That bad of a conversation?" Tracey asked without any real sympathy.

Blaise sighed. "I'll tell you about it later, but let's deal with Potter first."

"Great. I have the list in my bra," she said.

Blaise was sad to admit that he could believe that. "Really?"

"No, it's in one of my kimono's many folds," she said with a laugh. "It's like the whole damn thing has an Extensible Charm on it."

Getting to his feet, he beckoned to the two seats Potter had left at his table.

"Let's take our time," Blaise said with a smirk. "I think I could do with some more wine."

Tracey took his hand in hers. "And I some water," she said with her own smirk.


	7. luck is not chance, it's toil (5)

Harry watched the two Slytherins approach hand in hand. Their casual intimacy was something that Harry struggled to understand. He was sure they weren't together, but they interacted with each other with such an ease that Harry envied. Whilst he wasn't awkward around Ginny, he wasn't that comfortable with her either. Harry felt like slapping himself, talking about himself and Ginny like they were already together.

"About time," Hermione said. "We were starting to think you weren't coming."

Blaise nodded to Harry around his glass. Having watched Blaise drink his wine on and off over the course of the evening, Harry felt it was good at least someone liked the wine Slughorn had provided. No one on his table was touching it. Wine was just not to any of their tastes.

As Tracey went to take Luna's seat, the Ravenclaw appeared with a glass of water.

"Oh, sorry," Tracey said. "Didn't know this was your seat."

With a tap of her wand, Luna turned the chair into a small love-seat. "I think it's deeply unethical to excessively conjure things. Don't you agree, Tracey?"

Tracey slowly sank next to Luna, surprisingly silent for once.

Luna peered up at the tall brunette she was sharing her seat with, smiling in her absent-minded way. "Hmm?"

"Of course, Lovegood," Davis said, but not without a quick, bewildered glance at Blaise. "Someone else might need it."

"Exactly," Luna said with a nod.

Harry shared a look with Ginny. He was always happy to have someone suffering in silence with him.

"Someone else might need it," Blaise repeated, and Harry barely stifled a chuckle at the quizzical tilt to Blaise's eyebrows. "Well, that explains everything."

"Neville, you alright?" Harry asked. He'd been silent all night.

"Fine," Neville said. Though he sounded as he said, Harry didn't miss his askance look at Blaise sat next to him.

"We don't bite," Davis murmured.

"Tracey is more of a licker," Blaise remarked with a disgusted look at his friend.

Davis folded her arms tightly against her chest. "It was just once," she said. Davis attempted to elbow Blaise who caught it without even a blink. "Don't tell them all my secrets, Blaise."

"Licking is a lot more sanitary than biting," Luna added. "Besides, dental health is always important with the Rotfang Conspiracy in – "

Hermione groaned. Tracey stared at her neighbour, and Blaise nursed his wine with what Harry thought to be the faintest edge of desperation.

"Are you two making fun of me?" Neville interjected, staring at the Slytherins. Harry gave Luna a sympathetic smile at the downcast look in her eyes at the interruption, though inside he was quite pleased. He didn't want to see the Slytherins react to Quibbler conspiracy theories. Personally, he was willing to be accommodating, but that didn't really mean he was interested.

"No, Nev," Ron said with a long drawn out sigh. "That's just… how they are."

"Oh," Neville said in response.

Harry felt an instinctual sense of kinship with Neville's reaction. Witnessing Davis and Blaise interact was very much an 'oh' type of thing.

Davis reminded him a lot of Cho when it came to looks, though her skin was a warm tan compared to Cho's pale porcelain. She was incredibly pretty, but the comparison completely fell apart when it came to her personality. Harry was certain she was plain off her rocker, so it was a source of bewilderment to watch her routine with Blaise who he wouldn't describe as normal, but very much not, well, crazy. Thinking back to Blaise's comment about his 'wand', Harry decided that perhaps they were far more well-matched than he was giving them credit.

"Right…" Ginny murmured to herself. "Well, Harry sure knows how to choose his Slytherins."

"Finest taste," Blaise added, and as if to temper the compliment he added. "Surprisingly."

"Impressive for a Gryffindor," Tracey said.

Hermione snorted. "Damned by faint praise, Harry."

"Getting used to it," Harry said.

"Well, what about you, Zabini?" Ginny asked. "Do you do anything?"

"Of course," Blaise drawled. The default curl to his lip intensified. "Weasley, I can assure you that I don't bite or lick." His gaze turned downright vicious. "Potter can vouch."

The table fell silent at that.

Harry met the Slytherin's now blank expression. Looking carefully, he recognised the gleam of mischief in his eye as the one he'd had on the stairs not even two days ago. Blaise gave Harry a quick smile, a mocking echo of the one he'd given Harry in the hollow. Harry felt like Saint Potter with the potty mouth, as Blaise had prophesised, was very much on the verge of making an appearance.

"Do tell, Potter," Tracey murmured.

Hermione looked between him and the Slytherin before her lips parted into an o shape. Harry had no idea what she was concluding, but he didn't think it boded particularly well for him.

Luna leaned over Davis and patted Blaise on the shoulder in congratulations. He just stared at her, ignoring the suddenness of Davis and Ginny's frantic giggling and Ron's resultant wheeze.

"Good for you. It must have been difficult to control the urge to bite Harry," Luna said.

Harry shook at the sight of Blaise. The black teen was frozen, staring at the shoulder she'd touched with an expression that teemed with disbelief and disgust. As Luna sat back in her seat, she gave Blaise a radiant smile that wasn't even registered. He was fixated, perhaps hoping that answers laid in the lingering feeling of Luna's touch.

"What?" Blaise asked curtly. Neville broke also, chuckling into his napkin. Harry was sure the bewilderment in his tone wasn't feigned as he smoothed his shoulder with his hand. "What was that?" And the dam finally broke for Harry, he guffawed with the rest of the table. It was almost as if the Slytherin thought Luna had left a lingering taint on his person, and Harry would have laughed himself silly if Ginny hadn't nudged him, bringing him back to the reality of the situation.

"So, Harry," Ron said. "What's this about you being able to vouch?"

Harry cursed the dark-skinned Slytherin relaxing in his seat. They'd all been fooled by Blaise's pantomime. It was like the dust in the secret passage. Blaise took the opportunity of the loss of scrutiny to hail a waiter for more wine, wine that would likely provide a nice cap to Harry's embarrassment.

"Harry?" Ginny asked.

"Yes?"

"Care to explain?" Ginny prodded.

Hermione was giving him a sympathetic look that Harry couldn't parse. Ron was amused but more preoccupied with glancing at his bushy-haired neighbour when he thought she wasn't looking. Neville was visibly done with the lot of them, eating his egg roll with a determination that Harry hadn't seen since the fight in the Ministry.

Harry decided that he'd take a leaf out of Blaise's book and try the silent and cold treatment. Going by Neville's incredulous smirk, he didn't do a particularly good job of looking uninviting.

"Well, I think it's admirable that one of Elizabeth Báthory's descendants can resist the allure of Harry's potent blood," Luna explained with a wealth of patience that Harry chuckled at.

Harry had no idea who Elizabeth Báthory even was, but the mention of his 'potent blood' made enough to make him want to find a hole to hide in. Ron was watching him with a broad grin, clearly not interested in being of any help.

"That type of biting," Ginny said with a profound gravitas. She nodded in confirmation. "I see."

Blaise drained the rest of his glass in one. Harry was a little impressed and more than a little pleased to no longer be the focus of everyone's attention anymore. "Báthory. Really?" The Slytherin drawled.

"Báthory's a vampire, right?" Ginny asked pleasantly. She smirked at the black Slytherin, making her innocent question seem like a weapon. Leaning into the back of his chair, Blaise looked a little like he'd been slapped.

"Yes, though it was said she also had cambion tendencies." Luna looked closely at Blaise, taking in his incredibly sharp gaze. "It must be nice being immune to Wrackspurts," Luna said.

It was clearly meant to be a compliment, but Blaise's continued flat expression did nothing to halt Luna's inquisition. Harry wondered if he should speak up, yet Tracey's faint smile of amusement made him stop. She knew Blaise far better than he did.

"Must be nice," Ginny agreed.

Blaise glared at Luna. "You think my mother is a vampire with… cambion heritage?"

"Know," Luna corrected with a smile. From the satchel at her hip, she brought out some Blood Pops. "I was hoping Count Sanguini was coming, but if you ever find the urge too great – "

Ginny burst into laughter. In her mirth, she leaned into Harry's shoulder, leaving him only able to think of the press of her bare shoulder against his dress robes.

"Enough," Tracey said.

"I think I'll go and get a refill," Blaise drawled.

Without another word, Blaise took his glass, rose to his feet and walked away. Harry stared at the back of the Slytherin as he vanished into the crowd, feeling terribly guilty. At least he now knew that he'd been right to not ever mention Blaise's mother.

"I didn't mean to cause offense," Luna whispered. Tracey turned to whisper in Luna's ear, looking oddly stern, and whatever she said made Luna deflate further.

"Wow," Ginny stated.

Davis gave Harry a surprisingly cold look, but it quickly thawed and the smile she plastered on didn't convince Harry one bit. He didn't have any idea why she was even blaming him, but there was a fragment of himself that said he should have said something. "You couldn't have known better." Harry would have thought she was addressing Luna, but she was still looking at him. It was both oddly cryptic and direct, in a way. Davis turned instead to Ginny and the smile vanished. "Watch yourself, Weasley."

She hurried away also. Watching the retreating brunette, Ginny quirked an eyebrow in response. "What did I do?"

"Don't talk to my sister like that," Ron called to the kimono-clad girl. Turning to his sister, he grimaced. "You know what you did, Ginny. You were egging Luna on."

"A bit," Ginny admitted. "I didn't expect him to react that badly."

Harry disagreed. He believed Blaise had underreacted. In fact, Harry was a little impressed that rather than lose his temper, the Slytherin had excused himself.

Hermione was chewing her lip slowly, feeling a little bad for the Slytherin. "That was a bit tactless, Ginny. You know what Luna is like."

"Please don't talk about me like I'm not here," Luna said quietly. There was an uncomfortable edge to her voice that had Harry on alert.

Hermione winced. "Sorry about that."

Luna rose to her feet, smoothing down her gown that looked oddly enough like stylised chainmail. Compared to her spangled dress at the Christmas party, Harry thought it was an upgrade. "I should go and apologise to Blaise."

"Well. Great start," Ron said.

Seeing the beginnings of a bicker-fest between Ron and Hermione about to take shape, Harry decided that he wasn't in the mood to play mediator. He investigated the crowd, not finding Davis' colourful kimono, Luna's shimmering gown, or Blaise's tan blazer.

"I think I'm going to go and make sure Luna is okay," he fibbed.

"I'd come with, but Zabini is probably angry with me," Ginny said with an eye roll. "Didn't think he'd be so sensitive."

Harry absently nodded. "I shouldn't be long."

He found himself on auto-pilot, easily weaving past the heavy foot traffic and people wanting to have a quick word with the Chosen One. It wasn't even a minute before he found himself outside, away from the constant chatter and bickering couples. It was a source of relief.

"Potter?"

Blaise was stood on the other end of the corridor, posed as if he were contemplating the merits of the painting he was stood opposite. Not as if he'd left the party in a huff.

"Are you alright?"

Blaise just nodded slowly, staring into the dregs at the bottom of his wine glass. "It's been a long week."

"It has," Harry agreed. "I'm sorry about Luna. She didn't mean to upset you."

Blaise vanished his glass with a flick of his wand before giving Harry his full attention. "It seemed a better idea to leave than to say something that would make you angry."

Something in Harry jumped at that. Really, he should be calling out Blaise's lack of concern for Luna or any other of his friends, but a selfish part of him liked that the Slytherin's concerns were purely centred around him. That was why he never put up a fuss about Blaise's clear disinterest in being nice to Ron and Hermione, let alone befriending them. Harry realised that he quite liked the idea of having a friend that was purely his own, especially with how much Blaise had stated that he had Harry's back. Time would tell, but there was a strange form of possessiveness when Harry considered that Blaise was only interested in him.

"I should have expected she'd have some insanity to share," Blaise said dryly, "but as I said, it's been a long week."

Monday in the Hospital Wing, Wednesday in Flitwick's practice room, and today in Slughorn's party. Harry felt he'd seen quite enough of Blaise and that was without thinking of the detention with Flitwick tomorrow evening.

"Still got Friday and something could happen over the weekend," he teased.

"You have such a gift for saying the wrong thing, Potter," Blaise said with a little groan.

Blaise smiled a little, pushing himself away from the wall. It made him seem a lot more inviting and Harry incredibly aware of the space between them. Harry hated when people treated him like a bomb, so he moved towards Blaise, wanting to communicate that everything was still fine. Now within arms-length of Blaise, he was once again uncomfortably aware of how good he smelt. It was an intrusive thought and one that he hoped to ignore.

"I'm not mad," Harry said.

Blaise stepped a little closer, making the scent of him even stronger. The gentle smile on his face lingered. "I know. You're awfully accommodating of me," he murmured. "Why?"

Harry swallowed a little at the warmth in Blaise's eyes. "I want this to work out."

"This?"

"I don't want you to feel helpless. I know all about helplessness," Harry spat, thinking about his summer house arrest with the Dursleys, seeing Sirius at Grimmauld Place, and watching him fall through the veil. It was still a violent jolt to think of Sirius, like breathing through the twisting of a knife. "I wouldn't want someone else to go through that, especially someone willing to help me."

Silence descended upon them as Blaise considered his words.

"You're a modern-day saint, Potter," Blaise said, shaking his head not in disbelief, but a sort of amused acceptance. "Everyone knows you have a temper, so I'm a little confused as to why you give me so much leeway."

Harry thought of Hermione's never-ending nagging and zeal for authority and Ron's jealous stints. "Part of friendship is that you accept your friend's flaws," he said with a shrug.

"And it's entirely your fault, you know?" Blaise said.

"Oh?"

"Let's say I have… these _flaws_ you speak of." Blaise rolled his eyes as if the idea was ludicrous, and Harry smiled because this was the Blaise he was most familiar and comfortable with. Arrogant, snide and occasionally funny. The warmth in his eyes wasn't something he thought he could handle. "You're the one putting in so much effort to try and be friends with me," Blaise said.

Compared to Ron and Hermione, Harry found himself contemplating the nature of his responses far more with Blaise. It wasn't like navigating a minefield, but Blaise in a way had become a sort of pet project of Harry's. There was a sincerity to Blaise behind the conceit, and Harry enjoyed seeing the cracks in the Slytherin's armour.

"Sometimes, the things in life that pay off the most require the most effort. The struggle can be just as rewarding as the result, you know."

Blaise peered at him and Harry half-expected an answering sneer to accompany that deep look, but he smiled. "You're lucky I'm a little tipsy or I'd have laughed otherwise," came Blaise's drawled reply. He stared at his empty hand. "I shouldn't have vanished that glass."

Despite that dismissive reply, Harry knew that Blaise's smile had been genuine. That was enough for him. Baby steps. "Do you even like the wine?"

"It's far too sweet and tart for my tastes," he said with a laugh, "but if I'm to be the descendant of a mass-murdering vampire duchess, I deserve to be a little drunk."

Harry shrugged, conceding that Blaise needed this little out. Though, Harry would freely admit if asked that he wanted to see him drunk. "If thinking that makes you feel better."

Nodding back down the corridor, Harry walked back towards Slughorn's office, pleased that Blaise followed him without question.

"It only gets worse from here on, doesn't it? All the insanity you're involved in reaches its height at the end of the year," Blaise said. "Fuck, it's May."

"Language and stop being dramatic," Harry deadpanned. Thinking of something that would get Blaise to wipe the anxious frown on his face, he said the first thing that came to mind. "Stop worrying, it's unattractive."

It was ironic for him to be saying this. Katie Bell had returned this morning, and she'd clearly been Obliviated and subject to the Imperius Curse. Malfoy would, and should, be consuming his every thought, but he found himself incredibly distracted lately. That didn't mean he wasn't worried, but it wasn't consuming every idle thought. The shrunken book in his pocket, _The Intrepid Duellist's Essentials_ , was but one source of distraction.

"Sod off, Potter," Blaise said, a little louder than perhaps necessary.

A Ravenclaw girl they passed gave Blaise an offended look as if Blaise had offended her with his words. Harry, meanwhile, just smiled. "Hopefully no Death Eaters make a sudden appearance."

"I'm always attractive," Blaise muttered to himself.

Harry wisely kept his silence.

They made an interesting duo as they returned to the party. At least that much was made clear by the eyes that followed them as they made their way back to the table.

"Where'd Neville go?" Harry asked in question to the empty seat beside his own.

"Herbology first thing tomorrow," Ron explained.

"Probably tired of all the melodrama," Hermione said. "Merlin knows I am."

Davis now sat in Blaise's seat, looked at Blaise, tilting her head in question. Blaise gave her a single head shake and settled into the seat next to Harry, looking entirely unruffled. Her lips thinned in response to his silence, and she sighed.

"You took your time," she stated.

"I'm sure you had some thrilling conversation without me," he said.

"No, Ron and Hermione were just arguing to cover up their attraction to each other," Luna said.

Hermione stared at the petite blonde, doing her utmost to ignore the blushing redhead at her side. "Pardon?"

"Kiss already," Davis said, leaning forward on her elbows with a smirk. " _Please_ put us out of our misery."

Harry looked at his blushing friends. "It'd be about time."

Surveying the table, he noticed that Blaise was watching Ron and Hermione with the pinched expression of someone watching a catastrophic car crash, Luna was now smiling vacantly at the chandelier above them, and Ginny met his eyes with a slow smirk that derailed Harry's thought process. He knew it was clearly some lip gloss, but her lips had never been so kissable. Looking beyond the cupid's bow beckoning him, he met Ginny's hooded eyes.

Throwing caution to the wind, Harry moved to meet her, delighting in the sudden look of surprise in Ginny's bright brown eyes. It was a chaste kiss, but it had heat pooling in Harry's groin all the same.

Ron nodded at Harry, and he sighed in relief. Harry wasn't sure he'd be accommodating of Ron's sudden need to be a good big brother.

Hermione smiled at him brilliantly. "About time, Harry."

"Lovely," Luna said with a clap.

"At least the queue is gone," Blaise muttered to Davis.

The moment broke with Blaise's snide comment, but he didn't move to retort when Ginny's foot pressed against his own.

They all turned to face Ron and Hermione, the latter taking up a disposition more akin to a soldier under siege than a teenage girl being asked to kiss her crush. "What."

"Hermione is just a little nervous," Luna said. "The Wrackspurts are congregating around her."

"No, I'm not!" Hermione glared at them all. "Absolutely not."

"What's a Wrackspurt?" Tracey muttered.

"Don't ask," Blaise said desperately. Harry was certain if he had his wine glass he'd be taking another long sip. Blaise cleared his throat. "Hurry up, will you?"

Ron brought his hands to his chest and sighed dramatically. Despite the faint blush on his face, he seemed surprisingly confident to Harry. "I guess I'll have to go find Lav – "

"Don't you dare!" Hermione growled.

Ron grinned and leaned in. "Well?"

"Come on, come on, come on," Harry muttered under his breath. His pleas drew a snort from Ginny.

Ron quickly snuck a smooch that Hermione half-fought, half-melted into. It wasn't as romantic as Harry and Ginny's kiss, at least in Harry's opinion, but it was oddly fitting.

Blaise threw a couple of galleons at Davis with an ugly grimace. "I'd be annoyed about losing our bet, but I'm happy enough that this pussyfooting has ended," he said.

"Honeydukes, here I come," Tracey sang.

"With that, me and Luna better leave to make curfew," Ginny said. She kissed Harry once more, frazzling what little thought process he had going. "I'll see you tomorrow, Harry."

She waved. "Goodnight everyone."

"Bye everyone," Luna said. "I hope you all sleep well but beware of Hypnos' thrall. It's strongest during late spring."

"Sure," Blaise said slowly. "Sleep well."

Luna looked like she was on the urge of hugging the Slytherin, but she thought better of it and waved at him. "I'm sorry."

Blaise waved her off with a smirk.

"She's precious," Davis said after they'd left, sounding like she wanted to laugh.

"Very," Hermione said flatly.

Ron coughed.

"I don't need to give you the speech, do I Harry?"

"I won't hurt her," Harry said.

"She has six brothers."

"I know."

"Good."

"Now that that is out of the way, let's get to business," Blaise said.

He cast a spell unfamiliar to Harry, turning the surrounding sounds into near silence. "If you have any of your own privacy spells, please share."

Tracey flicked her own wand. "Local Confundus. Anyone who walks to our table will feel a strange sense of vertigo."

Harry smirked. " _Muffliato_."

"What's that?" Blaise asked.

"Lean out of your chair."

Davis leaned further and further out of her chair. "Like static," she remarked. "You have to teach us that."

Blaise leaned as well. "I agree."

"Make it worth my while," he said to the Slytherins.

"I'll think of something," Blaise said with an intense squint at him.

"Pity you're a taken man," Davis said, blowing a kiss at him.

"Remember my sister, Harry," Ron said dryly.

Eyeing the smirk Blaise and Davis were sharing, Harry snorted. "I don't think you have anything to worry about Ron."

"From Davis at least," Hermione said.

"Let's stop with the last names. I'm Tracey," she said, pointing to herself. "This is Blaise."

"You forget sometimes, huh?" Ron asked.

Tracey nodded. "My memory is under Hypnos' thrall. Or something."

Hermione gave Tracey a wry smile, not wanting to let her get going. "Let's… see this list then."

Abbott, Hannah

Nice girl, aspiring healer. Not currently in Hogwarts. Get in touch? E.

"I can't read Greengrass' handwriting," Harry stated. He wasn't sure it was Daphne's, but he thought it was a good guess. He knew Blaise's was a legible cursive and such an ornate script didn't seem to be Tracey's style.

Tracey laughed pleasantly. "I can't either. She's Daphne now, remember?"

"Right, Daphne's handwriting," Harry said.

Hermione tapped her wand against the parchment and Greengrass' spidery handwriting became legible.

 _Her mother is well-connected amongst the Ministry. I would recommend at least sending an owl. I agree with Tracey - E._

Bones, Susan

 **Strong sense of right and wrong. Very good with a wand, likely courtesy of her late Aunt. Priority. I highly doubt she'll be antagonistic, but if nothing else, I can serve as a go-between as we're friendly. Though if you were to convince Macmillan, she'd follow 100%. They're close, let's say. O+**

Boot, Trevor

 **I'll speak to him. O.**

"What does that even mean?" Hermione asked, eyeing Blaise weirdly.

"Don't worry your little, bushy head about it, Granger," Blaise said.

"Hermione," she corrected.

Blaise hummed in answer.

Harry had a lot of questions, but Tracey's immediate eye roll had made him realise that if it was something that even Tracey didn't want to touch, he didn't want to touch it either. At least not now.

Brocklehurst, Mandy

 _Very unlikely. After Edgecombe's little accident with Granger's cursed parchment, the odds of any alliance are slim. Her mother is a cousin of Edgecombe's mother and is very determined that her daughter keeps her head down, particularly with the Dark Lord about. If an opportunity arises, I would recommend not taking it. Don't even think about it actually. T._

Brown, Lavender

 _Archetypical Gryffindor. O._

"What's this meant to mean, Tracey?" Ron asked.

"It's self-explanatory," Tracey and Hermione said in unison.

They both stared at each other, bewildered.

"Though stereotypical," Hermione added, seeking to distance herself from the Slytherin.

Bulstrode, Millicent

If there ever were a Slytherin to ally with Potter who wasn't brain-dead, like us, it would be her. Too bad her family is practically in vassalage to the Parkinsons. D.

Corner, Michael

 **Terry's friend. He goes where he follows, and if his ex-girlfriend, Weasley for those with poor memories, is involved, he won't hesitate. O.**

Harry grit his jaw.

Cornfoot, Stephen

Who? _Hufflepuff in my Herbology class, Tracey. He's pure-blood and ambivalent to anything other than attempting to show up Longbottom. Perhaps use Longbottom's involvement as a means to provide Cornfoot another way to explore his one-sided rivalry. Either way, it'll be a difficult case. A._

Crabbe, Vincent

Ha. _Of course. O_. **If he's convinced, I'll actually snap my wand and become an ascetic. T minus.**

Davis, Tracey

C'est moi. **Idiot.** _Don't be rude, Blaise. Our idiot_. I resent this.

Entwhistle, Kevin

 **How he's still at Hogwarts is beyond me. Absolutely hopeless. Recruit him at your peril. A.** _What Blaise is trying to say is that Entwhistle is just completely useless with a wand. I don't think he's worth the effort._

Finch-Fletchley, Justin

Muggleborn with a tendency to ramble on and on about how broken Wizarding society is. Peddle some nonsense about revolution. E.

Finnigan, Seamus

Thomas' best friend. He'll follow. O.

Goldstein, Anthony

 _American ancestry. He's a fan of Potter's, to be blunt. O._

"A fan?"

"According to Daphne, he finds your resolution in face of the Ministry inspiring," Blaise explained.

Harry was quite flattered, honestly.

Goyle, Gregory _See Crabbe._

Granger, Hermione

 **OOOOOOOOOOE**. Yes.

"Those are my grades," Hermione pointed out.

"Yes," Tracey repeated.

"It's a good analogy for your commitment to Potter and Weasley," Blaise joked.

"Harry and Ron," Hermione corrected.

Blaise just sighed.

Greengrass, Daphne

 _A reluctant E_. **Just an E?** Please, you're lucky she's even going along with this.

Hopkins, Wayne

Like Entwhistle, he's a complete dud with a wand. It's up to you, Potter. I say don't bother. D.

"People can be taught, you know?" Hermione said.

"Do you have the time to do that?" Tracey retorted.

Jones, Megan

Great fun like me. Hufflepuff Chaser, so she automatically admires Potter's Quidditch ability. She's fairly close with Susan and Ernie, so it shouldn't be a large stretch to get her into the fold. E+.

Li, Sue

 **First violinist in Flitwick's quartet. She's done a very good job of staying under the radar; great marks in Charms, Arithmancy and Herbology. I'd love to say that she'd be a good prospect, but she's very skittish. A.** This is code for Blaise tried to flirt with her and she didn't immediately fall for his charms. _I don't really know much about her. She's the daughter of a well-respected Hit Wizard, Cheng Li, and a Muggle. I'll have to go with Blaise._

Longbottom, Neville

 _Surprisingly competent these days. I've noticed that his wandwork in DADA has improved massively. He would jump to assist Potter – revenge is a tempting mistress. O._ **New wand, Daphne. I think the old one was just a terrible fit. O.** He has strong morals and is Potter's friend. O+.

MacDougal, Isobel **She's in our study group for Arithmancy. Very serious, very smart, and very apolitical. The only thing she cares about is becoming an Unspeakable. It'd be a hard sell. A/P.**

"You have a study group for Arithmancy?" Hermione asked cautiously.

Blaise hummed. "You handle this, Tracey."

Tracey gave Hermione a cool look. "Interested?"

"If you don't mind?"

"You don't need them, Hermione," Ron said with a snort.

Harry was inclined to agree. She was top of the year without needing any outside help.

"It'd be nice to have people to study with for our exams," Hermione said with a blush.

Tracey and Blaise shared a long look, both blank-faced and deadly serious.

The brunette broke first, smirking deeply. "We'll put you on probation," Tracey said with audible relish. "No lecturing, no look-at-me-Professor-Vector-I'm-so-smart-and-everyone-else-is-hopeless, and no nagging."

"We've seen how you act around Harry and Ron," Blaise explained with a smile at Hermione's aghast blush. "We're not going to put up with it."

Ron looked at the Slytherins with awe and respect. "You mind extending those conditions to her everyday interactions with us?"

"I can consider it," Tracey said with a wicked smirk at Blaise.

"Avis."

Ron jumped in his seat, half-expecting a fleet of canaries to bombard him, yet Hermione hadn't even lifted her wand.

"That was mean," Harry said, laughing hard.

Hermione was still blushing violently, but she chuckled a little herself. "Just a little."

"There's a story there," Tracey remarked.

Blaise's gaze rotated between Ron and Hermione. "An abusive story."

Ron's look of vindication had Harry snickering.

Macmillan, Ernest

A bit snobbish (nothing compared to Blaise), but he's decent enough. He's fond of Potter. O. **I resent that.**

Malfoy, Draco

 **Absolutely not.**

Harry agreed with that. Absolutely not indeed.

Malone, Roger

Who? **Yes. Who?** _There's only 40 people in our year, and it's frighteningly easy to just… not know people. Strange. Irish Ravenclaw. He's Muggleborn, and he's struggling to keep up with NEWT standard. I don't know anything else honestly. I'll say P._ P for Piss Poor. **Witty.**

"And you were on my case about my lack of wits," Ron said with a laugh.

Tracey shrugged. "We all have our bad days."

Moon, Lily

I think she's a Gryffindor? That's about it. **I have nothing.** _Pureblood from New Zealand. Quite shy. We were partners in Ancient Runes. She was very unremarkable, and I get the feeling that she just doesn't want to interact with people. D._

"Lily's like that," Hermione said with a sad smile. Nott, Theodore

 **Would sooner castrate himself than be remotely associated with Dumbledore (and that means you, Potter). Absolutely a T.** Apt. _Far too graphic._

"That's disgusting," Hermione muttered, "but I can believe it. He's always leering at me when I'm in the Library."

"What?" Ron demanded.

"Save the caveman routine for later please," Blaise said. Parkinson, Pansy

Of us three, I know Pansy the best. No. Way. T-.

Patel, Parvati

Another archetypical Gryffindor. O. **She'll join if her sister joins. They have a bit of a rivalry going on. O.**

Patel, Padma

 **I'll speak to her. O.** Again, everyone but Tracey stared at Blaise. He smirked back.

"I think I get it," Hermione said, giving Blaise the gimlet eye. "Don't lead them on."

"Hermione being pragmatic," Tracey said with a smile. She nodded appreciatively. "About time."

Harry thought back to the other names in the list. It hit him like a Bludger. "You and… Terry?" Harry asked.

"You're gay?!" Ron yelled.

Harry, still gobsmacked, sighed with relief that the muffliato held.

Making eye contact with Harry, Blaise shrugged. "Is that a problem? If it makes you feel better, I'll remind you that Padma is a girl's name."

Harry gulped, feeling incredibly anxious for a reason beyond his understanding. Surely, Blaise should be the one feeling under pressure, not Harry. "No… no problem at all."

Ron blushed violently at the cold look in Hermione's eye. "No. I'm glad you like blokes."

Blaise's eyebrows did their trademark ascent. "Really?"

"Oh yeah," Ron said in a conciliatory tone.

Tracey and Hermione just stared at Ron.

"And girls," Ron murmured into the silence.

"Wow," Tracey said in a trailing whisper. "Amazing. Ron the pillar of acceptance."

"Exactly," Ron confirmed.

When Blaise stopped watching Harry, he allowed himself the luxury of breathing before looking back to the parchment.

Perks, Sally-Anne

 _Left for Ilvermorny in the middle of first year. I only thought to include her for completeness._ Anal-retentiveness. Daphne is very anal. **If you've read this far, Tracey is currently admiring her new tail.**

"Daphne is very good at human Transfiguration," Tracey said in response to Hermione's horror.

"That's horrible! What if she messes up and – "

"Grang – " Blaise halted at Harry's sharp look. "Hermione, she's gotten a _lot_ of practice. Believe me."

"That's still not right."

Potter, Harry

The boy wonder himself. Blaise, what have you gotten us into? **Insanity**.

Harry, feeling the eyes of the others on him, just snorted.

Rivers, Oliver

 _See Lisa Turpin since Tracey decided to skip ahead._

Roper, Sophie

Our dormmate. Pansy's lackey. T.

Smith, Zacharias

 **Try not to mention my involvement. We're not on good terms. E+.** Oh. _Blaise has always had a talent for understatement. As far as Smith is concerned, Blaise doesn't exist, so bear that in mind if you try and approach him. Though with the rumours flying around the school… A+ at best and D at worst._

"Another?" Harry asked, torn between disbelief and annoyance.

Blaise actually looked a little embarrassed. "I'd rather not contemplate Smith's existence right now if you don't mind."

Thomas, Dean

We were partners for a project in Ancient Runes in fifth year. He was very nice, and we all know how he stood up for Potter to Umbridge. O+. **Glowing commendation, Tracey. I agree though. O.** _Crush? You could do far worse._ Parkinson would eat me alive. Also, don't hex me, but go fuck yourself, Daph. 😊

"Daphne sometimes needs a firm hand," Tracey explained in response to Hermione's grimace and Ron's chortle.

"Right," Blaise deadpanned. "The only firm hand she needed was on her wand when she replaced all your fingers with thumbs."

"Daphne seems scary," Ron offered.

Tracey rolled her eyes. "By Daphne's standards that was mild."

"That makes it better?" Hermione asked.

"Well, it was easy to reverse," Tracey said matter-of-factly.

Turpin, Lisa

Ravenclaw. Loner apart from her boyfriend, Oliver. You'd somehow have to convince both of them. I don't think it's likely though. They just want to be left alone. D. _Her father was murdered not even a week ago. You could capitalise on the grief, but I don't think she'd respond well to that. Let her come to you, as unlikely as it is. D._

Weasley, Ronald

O.

"I'm kind of disappointed," Ron admitted.

"Get used to it," Tracey said with a sniff.

Zabini, Blaise

 _And the catalyst for all of this. O+++._ **Found your sense of humour, Daphne? I'm committed as Potter knows. O++++** The things I do for my one true love, Blaise. How I love him. O+++++. **You are actually revolting.**

"Well, that was a fun read," Hermione said with a pleasant smile. "We have our targets for reviving the DA."

It was. Harry had a particularly vivid image of the three of them crowded around a scroll of parchment, jostling each other, laughing, and hexing each other before putting quill to parchment.

"Your little Defense group," Tracey stated.

"We're going to revive it over the weekend," Harry confirmed.

Tracey shrugged. "It's a start."

"I'd say keep us posted, but we're going to be seeing each other tomorrow in detention," Blaise said with an eye roll.

"Can I ask a question?" Ron asked.

"I encourage you to ask as many as you can, Wea – Ron," Blaise drawled.

Ron didn't even react to his comment. "Are you two…?"

"Absolutely not," Blaise repeated. He turned to Tracey with an accusing look. "I only took... forty minutes to get ready?"

Ron and Harry snickered at the uncertainty in Blaise's voice.

"Another reason I wouldn't date him," Tracey said with a snort. "Blatant lies. More like well over an hour."

Hermione offered her own barbed comment. "Well, you do give off the impression of putting in a lot of... effort."

Taking in Blaise's figure-hugging suit and the way he carried himself, Harry could only agree with her. He strutted about like Fleur had used to. "He really does," Harry said.

"What have I done to deserve this?" Blaise muttered lowly, once more reflexively reaching for a glass that wasn't there.

"Exist," Harry said blandly.

"Yes, I'm coming to the conclusion that existing has been the point of difficulty in my life," Blaise drawled.

"That's a bit... dark," Tracey offered in the ensuing silence.

"I'm still tipsy. I can be as morbid as I want," Blaise snapped. He shook his head impatiently, seeming to have gained a moment of lucidity. To Harry, he still didn't seem that drunk to begin with. "Besides, this is all Harry's fault. Seriously."

Harry jerked a little at the smoothness of Blaise's baritone around his name, and thinking of Ginny, he decided that he may just have a big problem.


	8. luck is not chance, it's toil (6)

Blaise woke up. Tossing and turning in his bed, he groaned at the immediate sight of the Black Lake's glow through the subterranean windows. He wasn't quite hungover, but he wasn't exactly well either. Harry had left after they'd run through the list, leaving him and Tracey to linger around. Blaise couldn't remember the reason they'd given for staying, but it seemed to have involved him drinking more wine. How many glasses did he drink? Why had he been drinking? Blaise was certain he'd had at least eight glasses of Slughorn's horrible wine that could have doubled as cordial.

After grunting his displeasure at the stupidity of getting drunk on shit wine, Blaise dispelled the Intruder Charm around his bed with a muttered terrorem hominibus. One of the things he liked about the charm was the fact you could customise the sound of the alarm. He'd opted for a mimicry of a mandrake's scream. It may not have the same effect as the true source (and guarantee him a trip to Azkaban), but Blaise was paranoid enough to want any intruders, Draco especially, to at least fear for their lives before they tried to attack him. Blaise found Draco's bed as empty as usual upon pulling the silver curtains around his bed aside.

Checking his watch, he was glad to take note of the fact he'd woken up at a decent enough time: 5:45am. Theo was usually up a little past six. By some miracle, Theo managed to spend longer in the shower than Blaise did, so it was with a quick dash that he attempted to cross the room. The violent throbbing of his temple almost thwarted him, but he persevered with a loud hiss that had Crabbe's snoring cease for a second.

As Blaise turned the corner into the bathroom, it resumed, louder than ever and more hog-like than Blaise could ever remember it being. Blaise liked to think that Crabbe had the type of snoring that you could feel in your very bones. Closing the door behind him, he gave his own snort.

Somehow staggering through a shower, Blaise dressed, smiling to himself now that he felt half-way human. It was as he was making his way up the stairs to the Common Room that Theo woke up with a murmuring of half-formed syllables. 6:20. It seemed he wasn't the only one in the dorm who'd had a busy night.

Like usual, it was just him, Daphne, and Tori this early.

"Morning."

Tori grunted a morning from her web of blankets, and Daphne put her book down on a neighbouring table. Blaise was half-tempted to join them on the couch, but Tori had spread herself all over it. He settled for standing before them.

"Sleep well?" Daphne asked. "Tracey told me it was a trying night."

"Trying week," Blaise corrected.

Daphne gave him a serious nod before gently nudging Tori upright. Blaise slid next to her with an appreciative smile. "Well enough," Blaise said. Turning to Daphne's blanket-covered sister, he gave her a sympathetic nod. Going by the black-lidded eyes peeking up at him, she looked worse than he felt. "Still making Tori wake up early?"

"Yes," Tori muttered into Daphne's shoulder. "I think she gets lonely. Tracey takes forever to get up."

"I've had very little time with you this week," Daphne said in a curt tone.

Tori's ensuing sigh broke into a weak cough. Blaise and Daphne shared a dark look. As Tori had gotten older, her periods of sickness had become increasingly frequent. Before, they were largely in the winter months, but they were occurring more and more during milder months as well.

"That's Blaise and Potter's fault," Tori ground out between gentle rubs of her back from her sister.

"My fault?"

Blaise laughed at the derisive look on Tori's delicate features.

"The entire school knows about you and Potter," Tori whispered, peering up at Blaise through her bangs. "Have you not heard about you and Potter?"

Feeling darkly amused, Blaise decided why not as deep down, he enjoyed hearing whatever rumour was on the round about him and Harry. They were always far-fetched.

"No, I haven't," Blaise said lightly. "Care to share?"

"Well, it's either you're boyfriends or you're best friends," Tori explained eagerly. "My friend in Ravenclaw, Lauren Simons, thinks there's a love triangle between you, Potter and Weasley."

Blaise hummed in response to that. He wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of him being in competition with that childish firecracker. Deciding to be honest with himself, he admitted he hated it, especially after her little goading of the Lovegood girl yesterday.

"I was unaware I was competing with the youngest Weasley," Blaise remarked. Taking in Tori's confusion, he added. "In anything."

"Uh, Blaise? I mean Ron Weasley."

Blaise just about held back from retching. The day where Blaise ended up competing for someone with Ron Weasley was the day he must've taken a shower in Fiendfyre or whoever they were competing for had been rendered deaf, dumb and blind. By Ron's boorishness maybe.

"I think you're a little confused, Tori," Daphne said, with one hundredth of the horror Blaise felt.

Tori smiled with a dainty shrug. "I never said Lauren was correct, did I?"

"Has she considered seeing a Healer specialising in sudden-onset insanity?" Blaise asked in a low murmur.

Daphne took a break from her fond look at her sister to roll her eyes at Blaise. "Be nice."

Tori rolled her eyes also. "Yeah, Blaise. Be nice."

"If I must," he said.

"So… you and Potter?" Tori asked. There was transparent hope in her voice.

Blaise shook his head. "I'm sorry to disappoint."

Tori sighed. "You'd be cute together, you know?"

Daphne peered up at him with her sister, smirking. "I'm not sure about cute, but it'd certainly be… something."

"Cute?" Blaise repeated. It was no mystery that Blaise took great pride in his looks. He was many things: handsome, stunning, beautiful, pretty (he could tolerate), and many more. Cute? He hadn't been cute since he was eight.

Tori clapped her hands together with glee. "Well, of course. I was telling Tracey all about it when you were in the Hospital Wing."

"You were?" Blaise asked.

"Uh huh," Tori said, nodding happily. "She wasn't convinced at first, but I managed to convince her."

He felt strangely disappointed that Tracey had to be convinced, but it would explain why she'd only mentioned it on Thursday. If Tracey was onboard with saying anything remotely embarrassing, she didn't hesitate.

"Oh, yes," Daphne drawled. "Tori has a particular investment in your association with Potter."

Tori giggled in response to Blaise's snort. "It'd be a great scandal."

They chatted for the next hour or so as his House filled the Common Room. Tracey still hadn't showed up, but she was generally the type to wander in late for breakfast.

When the Common Room was beginning to get packed, Blaise rose his feet. "Going to breakfast?" Blaise asked.

Daphne shook her head. "I have Herbology."

"See you at lunch?" Blaise offered.

With Daphne's assent, Blaise made his way to breakfast with a quick goodbye to the sisters.

Just the sight of Harry was enough to get his headache going once more. Hermione's shrill voice even more so. But it was the sight of the youngest Weasley sitting beside him with a quick kiss that had him turning away. Blaise wasn't jealous. That, he was certain of, but he felt that Harry deserved better. The problem was that he wasn't exactly sure who was good enough for Harry. That only brought up the uncomfortable realization that somehow, within a week of knowing the Gryffindor, he'd begun to put him on a pedestal. He was far too easy to admire.

Disturbed by this track of thought, Blaise decided to focus on his eggs, even as Tracey slid beside him, a gentle rub of his back her way of greeting him.

"It's been a long week," she said in way of greeting. "Daphne skipped again?"

Blaise nodded his assent around a sip of black tea. Daphne always skipped breakfast before Herbology. Something about eating before Herbology made her nauseous.

"It's been the longest week," he added.

Tracey poured herself some pumpkin juice with a little smile. "I'm sure it'll pay off."

* * *

The walk to Potions was not unlike a march to Blaise's doom. Between the prospect of sitting next to Draco, being in the same room as Slughorn after that little emotional outburst last night, and Harry's general confusion-inducing aura, Blaise thought he was quite right to be dreading the double period. The black, cobbled stone and weak heat of the corridor next to the Potions classroom came far too soon.

All his fretting turned out to be for nothing. Draco hadn't turned up, and they ended up having a nice peaceful lesson brewing.

"Blaise," Slughorn called after Blaise had collapsed his cauldron and measuring kit. "A word please."

Blaise stifled his immediate need to curse. The use of his first name in the classroom environment had his hackles up. "Of course, Professor."

Harry lingered, even after his friends had left, provoking Blaise to roll his eyes. The Gryffindor was so transparently curious. If Harry's Patronus wasn't some form of feline, Blaise would be quite shocked.

"Off you go, Harry," Slughorn said with a chuckle. "Unless it's something important, Minerva awaits!"

Blaise smirked at Harry's faint flush. "Lost, Harry?"

Harry shook his head impatiently. "Right. Have a good weekend, Professor." He nodded at Blaise, winking as he turned to the door.

Slughorn chortled to himself after the door had shut. "Friends, eh?"

Blaise considered that. He'd thought the idea of him and Harry being friends was completely ridiculous, like Snape and shampoo, but it didn't seem so bad now. Harry was acceptable for a Gryffindor.

"Something like that."

Slughorn walked back to his desk and proceeded to look through one of its cabinets. "It's to my understanding that Professor Snape has already spoken to you about your… cursed mail," Slughorn said.

Blaise sighed with relief. It had become almost second nature to assume everything involved Potter, but this was something that didn't involve him at all. This had been a recurring complaint since the beginning of the year.

"It was more Filch who spoke to me," Blaise said.

He didn't bother to mention Filch's threats about detention for assault upon his person. Blaise wouldn't have gone to them anyway. Regardless, the Aurors that were guarding the school should be checking the mail, not an unhinged Squib.

Slughorn sighed. "So why is all your correspondence cursed?"

"My mother doesn't listen," Blaise said immediately.

It was true.

"She values her privacy," Slughorn confirmed in a bland sort of tone.

Blaise shrugged. If his mother wanted privacy, she was capable of far better than a letter curse. "The curse is easy to break once you know it's there. It's more she wants anyone stupid enough to go through my mail to – "

"Suffer?" Slughorn suggested and Blaise wisely said nothing in response. Slughorn's frown deepened. "I saw Filch's hands after handling your mail, Blaise. Second degree burns."

That would be the assault on Filch's person, Blaise supposed. He wasn't sympathetic; the whole Aurors and Filch going through student mail was little more than a source of irritation for him. Draco seemed to be getting around it just fine anyway.

"As I've said, my mother doesn't listen to me," Blaise repeated. "You'd be better off either warding the castle from her mail or getting in touch yourself."

Slughorn looked intrigued. Blaise was well aware of Slughorn's pathological need to be one of the very few who had insight into his mother beyond tabloid speculation. It was no mystery which of the two options Slughorn would opt for.

"It wouldn't be proper to prevent a parent from keeping in touch with a student," Slughorn said, eyeing Blaise seriously.

This affable avarice was familiar and all too welcome for Blaise. Sentimental Slughorn was something beyond his need or want to know or understand.

Blaise smirked. "No, sir. It wouldn't."

"I suppose I should fetch my quill then," Slughorn said with a nod before extending two pieces of parchment to Blaise. "Ah yes. Before I forget…"

Blaise accepted his mail with a nod. "Thank you, Professor."

A frown crossed Blaise's face at the realisation that Professor Snape had not been involved. The last time this had happened, Snape had extracted a promise that his mail wouldn't be cursed again and that was it. With Blaise's now public association with Harry, he expected his head of House to swoop in any moment now to tell him he had to clean the Hospital Wing with a toothbrush. It was a common threat to the students in his House as he was of the opinion that if they made his job difficult, he'd make their lives difficult.

"Is there a particular reason why my head of House isn't giving me this conversation?"

"Oh, yes. He plans on having you clean bedpans for Poppy for a week. No magic."

Blaise maintained a neutral expression, but inside he wanted to violently gag. "Really?" Blaise murmured.

"Oh, yes. Six to nine every evening until next Sunday," Slughorn said. With a violent twitch of his moustache, he continued. "He said something about a toothbrush."

Blaise grimaced. Still, it could be worse. He could have been given a truly vindictive task like Longbottom had. It had been a special brand of cruelty to ask someone with a toad familiar to disembowel a barrel of horned toads.

"If it makes you feel any better, Blaise. Poppy would veto the toothbrush," Slughorn said. He nodded to himself, leaning back in his seat with a casual humour Blaise thought was inappropriate for the situation. "No, if she receives student help, she wants it to be timely."

Blaise's grimace deepened. "How about a veto of the cleaning all together."

Slughorn chuckled. "You feel no degree of liability at all?"

"Exactly," Blaise said. His tight grip on the lip of his workbench began to hurt his palms. He shouldn't have been so quick to agree to that, but the idea of cleaning bedpans did not appeal in the slightest.

"You're in luck," Slughorn said after a long silence.

Still paranoid, Blaise gave Slughorn a cool look. "Define luck."

"It was no trouble to say that I had a more fitting punishment for you," Slughorn said, lifting his quill from the inkpot and beginning to write in his loopy script. "I've never particularly understood Severus' fixation on purely punitive measures. Students learn nothing from it. No, you'll spend Sunday evening with me preparing burn-healing pastes and Dittany for Poppy."

"Thanks, Professor," Blaise said, not even bothering to mask the relief in his voice. His fingers slackened against the granite.

"It's the least I can do for one of my favourite students," Slughorn said with a cheeky wink.

He banished a note towards Blaise without lifting his eyes from the parchment. Blaise caught it easily.

Minerva,

Apologies for the delay with Mr Zabini. We've discussed his little mail issue and I think we may have reached a solution.

Yours,

Horace

"Give that to Minerva."

Blaise dipped his head in acknowledgement before bidding Slughorn a hasty goodbye. He thought Slughorn was being a tad optimistic if he thought that his mother would listen to him either.

Alone in the privacy of a dungeon corridor, Blaise lifted the letters, one by one, to the gold ring on his right thumb. The generic messages of greeting and well wishes faded, and in their place came the true messages from his uncle and mother.

Blaise,

Your mother has been livid about your lack of owl. Do try and send her an owl at least once a month, as I don't appreciate having her Apparate into my flat under the impression that I've poisoned you against her. She does a fair job of that herself.

That aside, I pray you are safe and that all is well with you. I'm sure you are fine, but it always brings me peace to know that you are okay (yes this is a politely written request for you to owl me also). Our family, both in Mozambique and Portugal, send you their love and keep you in their thoughts. Rosa and Lena look forward to seeing you this summer, as do I.

Best wishes,

Armando Madeira

The reminder of his uncle's animosity towards his mother aside, it was a standard letter from his uncle. If he'd had a more normal upbringing, he'd be long immune to his uncle's easy affection and seemingly constant need to remind Blaise that he was missed. It always managed to make him smile the tiniest bit.

He turned his attention to the next letter, bracing himself.

My son,

You have not sent me a letter in far too long. Maybe you thought that I would forget about you? I hope you are assured by the fact that your mother still cares for her son, even if he shows little affection in return. I find Howlers entirely uncouth, but your continued silence has made me consider them. This is your last warning; I expect a letter from you by the end of the first week of May.

Blaise's grip crinkled the parchment noisily. He continued.

I trust you have been focusing on your education. In my eyes, this Voldemort character is little more than a nuisance. He is of little consequence, and under Dumbledore's watch at Hogwarts, you are safe. If not, you have a place with me as always. It would be no imposition to hire tutors for you, Blaise.

Thinking of all the lapses in safety over the last six years and Draco's current plotting, Blaise considered how his mother would react if he told her what had happened, rather than the curated stories that everyone but Potter's friends were fed by staff. He'd be in Beauxbatons, as she'd always wanted, before he could blink.

I've managed to procure a Charms book I thought you might like, Cantrips & Illusions, an Analysis by Marcurio Faccia, from the Florentine Museum. I read it myself while waiting for a long overdue letter from you, and it has a lovely treatise on the efficacy of the Disillusionment Charm followed by a comparative analysis of alternatives. There was a very bizarre Charm of Indian origin that allowed one to meld with flame (I've included the wand movement and phonetic pronunciation on the back – do be careful though. The author did say that whatever extinguishes the flame also extinguishes you). I gave Isabela a terrible fright when I emerged from the fireplace before lunch. Currently, I'm attempting to make a copy of the book to send to you by owl, but the spellwork on the text holds firm and is beyond any anti-copy protections I've ever seen. If successful, I'll send you the copy. If not, you'll have to come and see me to read it.

The book she'd acquired had to be a one of a kind to have been retrieved from a museum. Blaise's right hand slackened around the parchment in awe, though he was a little nervous by what could possibly have motivated this. Nothing his mother did was without purpose, and he didn't think it was as simple a case as pleasing him.

By the way, poor Dmitri passed last week - an accident while brewing a Pepper-Up Potion. Tragic. The funeral will be held in July, so I expect to see you there. It would only be proper considering he was the brother of the Greek Minister. I've already informed your uncle, so you have no excuse for hiding from your mother in London for the whole of summer again. I will come for you if you do.

With the love only a mother can give,

Vittoria Zabini

Perhaps he should be mourning another one of his mother's husbands dying, but he didn't know the man, and this wasn't exactly the first time. Far from it. Instead, he was left bewildered by the idea of someone dying brewing a Pepper-Up Potion. How? Blaise wouldn't be surprised if the coming investigation, which would most definitely happen considering who had died, would corroborate her story. They always did. She had more than enough enemies, but he knew his mother. When whatever official came to investigate her with whatever preconceptions they may have, by the end of their visit, she'd have them in the palm of her hand. He'd never met someone who could quite captivate a room quite like she could. Maybe Dumbledore, but never through charm alone.

Blaise almost didn't register the fact he'd have to spend some time in Italy with his mother. It wasn't that he didn't love his mother (he did), but he always struggled to be in the same house as her, knowing that it was just an ornately decorated graveyard. It was why he'd pushed to go to Hogwarts – he'd known that to receive an invitation, you needed to reside within Britain. It had been the perfect excuse to, in a sense, move out. Their relationship had yet to recover. Quite rightly, his mother had taken it as a form of rejection, and he'd done little to convince her otherwise.

Putting that aside, he checked the other side of the parchment for the Charm his mother mentioned. The wand movement was three parallel, circular arcs followed by a jab, and the incantation was in Hindi (most likely bastardised like the Latin they used at Hogwarts), aag keesvayan. Considering the potential utility, it was less cumbersome than he'd expected. He'd practice it in private at a later point.

Tucking the letters into his robes, he made his way to Transfiguration. It was likely he'd be almost twenty minutes late.

* * *

"You're late, Mr Zabini," McGonagall said with a tiny incline of her head. "Before I take points away from Slytherin, is there a reason for this?"

The resounding low grumbling from his House was as predictable as it was familiar. McGonagall took points from him all the time for lazy wand movements. With that in mind, Blaise was a little nervous about her sudden restraint. McGonagall had always been a take points first, ask questions later type of person. Not unlike Snape, funny enough.

"I'm sorry, Professor," he said automatically. "Professor Slughorn gave me a note."

He passed it over to the stern-faced woman, and upon reading the note, her lips thinned further. "I see."

She gestured to an empty seat. "Sit next to Ms Patil, Mr Zabini."

Giving Padma an appreciative nod for moving her stuff, he took the seat beside her. They were continuing with hair transfiguration, but rather than changing the colours of their eyebrows, they were now expected to change the colour of their hair. McGonagall gave them a brief demonstration, turning her bun a bright white and back with little fanfare, and they were given half an hour to practice.

It didn't take long for someone to be successful.

"Wonderful, Ms Granger," McGonagall called. "Five points to Gryffindor."

Watching Daphne follow Hermione seconds later, Blaise contented himself with the fact that despite the sudden, rapid changes in his life, the little things remained the same. He and Padma followed five minutes later, his hair turning a rusty red and hers a dark blue.

With the murmur of low conversation and incantations having long filled the room, Blaise turned to his neighbour. Having been successful with the transformation several times, he felt McGonagall wouldn't give him a detention if caught slacking. Besides, he'd said he'd talk to Padma and now was a perfect opportunity.

"Hey," he murmured.

Padma just curled her lip. With a huff, she looked askance at him before trying once more to remove the mix of neon purple and burgundy in her ponytail. Blaise wasn't much better – his braids were now a sunflower yellow instead of the brown he'd been hoping for. Eyebrows had been hard enough. Hair was even harder. Somehow, his lapses of visualisation were resulting in anomalous colours rather than the charm outright failing. It was safe to say that Blaise had never really gotten Transfiguration. It had always felt a lot like hopeful wishing and imagination when it came to learning new spells, rather than reliance on any true theoretical grounding.

"Crinus muto," they said, Padma first and Blaise following.

Padma's hair became a rich burgundy, but going by her ensuing eye roll, it wasn't intended. His own became a patchwork of russet and black. Daphne, ahead of them, was idly brushing her long platinum blonde locks. Serving as a stunning contrast, Tracey's hair was a violent red, and she turned to face Blaise with her usual preternatural awareness of him. He rose an eyebrow at her. Intentional?. She snorted before turning back around. Of course.

Chuckling to himself, he turned back to his neighbour who'd watched their exchange in confusion.

"Hello," he said dryly.

Padma seemed as if she were going to ignore him, already moving to turn away, but he smiled gamely.

"After Charms, I'm surprised you've remembered how to talk," she said in a low snappish whisper.

Padma had been one of the first to ask him if he'd been alright in Charms when he'd been doing his best gargoyle impression. It wasn't the best of starts, but Blaise was hopeful. They weren't close in the way that he was close to Tracey, or even Daphne, but Blaise was definitely fond of Padma. He was certain she was at least fond of him.

"I'm sorry," he said with a wince. "I just had a lot on my mind."

She softened a bit. "Me and Susan were worried. Flitwick too."

"Not Sue?"

Padma rolled her eyes. "She's never really liked you and leaving the quartet without saying goodbye did little to please her. You know she's always had little tolerance for your…"

Blaise smirked, recalling Sue's reactions to his playful teasing quite well.

"My bullshit?"

Padma finally smiled at him, just as prettily as he remembered back in fifth year. "Exactly."

"So, we're good?"

Padma tilted her head in question. There was a certain sharpness to the smile that appeared on her face. "Tell me about you and Harry," she whispered.

Blaise sighed. "Elaborate."

Of course.

"Are you two together?"

It said a lot about the priorities of his classmates that they cared so much about whether he and Harry were together or not. Any sane person would care more about what had happened to cause them to both end up in the Hospital Wing.

"No. We're not."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

Padma, if anything, seemed to become more determined, sitting up ramrod straight in her seat. "There was a period in fourth year where Parvati thought he was gay, you know?"

Blaise became stiller than he thought possible. Harry did tend to gaze at him, but he'd never seen it as being out of attraction. It'd always seemed like a healthy sort of scrutiny (which Blaise approved of). Regardless, he maintained his careful nonchalance, especially in the face of Padma taking careful inventory of his potential reactions.

"Oh?"

"After the Yule Ball, Parvati was convinced that he had a crush on Cedric," Padma whispered. "He'd spent the whole evening staring at him, according to her."

The unbidden anticipation building in his abdomen was immediately dispelled. "You mean Chang," Blaise said dismissively.

"That's what I thought, but Parvati was convinced he was staring at Cedric." Seeing his disbelieving face, she continued. "She only dropped the theory when Harry got with Cho."

Blaise snorted in memory of that short-lived romance. The only thing that stopped him from actually laughing was the sight of McGonagall strolling down their row. Giving Padma a significant look, he pointed his wand to his hair.

"Crinus muto," they said together.

Once more their hair was completely black. Upon a closer look, he could see a strange gradient effect at the ends of his hair. He lifted his wand once more at the traitorous red, jaw twitching.

"Crinus muto," he snapped.

McGonagall nodded at him with a thin smile, pleased. "Five points to Slytherin and Ravenclaw."

"As I was saying, are you sure you want nothing from Harry?" Padma asked as soon as McGonagall was out of earshot.

Why did everyone seem to think that he was only helping Harry to shag him? Blaise wasn't entirely sure whether this conclusion was the result of a character judgment or a reflection of people's perceptions of his mother. Either possible answer was an uncomfortable truth.

When feeling under pressure, Blaise defaulted to being rude. "Is this some lingering resentment about the Yule Ball?"

It was a pathetic attempt at misdirection. Padma had taken his rejection of her incredibly well in fourth year because, to her eyes, he'd went with Tracey, his best friend. He hadn't told her who he was going with. Whilst he thought she'd taken it incredibly well, it hadn't stopped her from giving him the cold shoulder for weeks.

Padma's arched brows articulated her feelings quite well. "Really? You went with Davis, your friend. I think that's admirable."

"Admirable… no, what I find truly admirable is going with Ron Weasley. The act of a martyr."

Padma's sudden pained expression was bliss to Blaise's eyes. The Yule Ball had been a disaster for both of them date-wise. The Beauxbaton girl, Lucile, he'd planned on going to the Yule ball with had pulled out at the last minute. She'd concluded that a seventeen-year-old going with a fifteen-year-old wasn't exactly proper. If Blaise were the type to have bragged about his date, like Draco, it could have been mortifying, but he was nothing if not discreet and pragmatic. He'd refused to speak to Lucile afterwards, to her confusion. She'd then completely lost her composure at being rejected by a, in her words, "child", almost drawing her wand on him. That had put an awkward spin on the time they'd spent together in broom cupboards all over Hogwarts.

Tracey had been his saviour. She'd planned on going with Daphne as friends, but Astoria's health had deteriorated that winter. Daphne had skipped the Ball to visit Astoria in St Mungo's.

"Back to Harry," Padma said in a clipped tone.

"Are you sure you're not the one who wants something from him?" Blaise said, resting his head in his hands.

He'd quite like it if they could discuss something else really. Anything else.

"I know you're gay, Blaise," Padma said with a smirk.

Now that he thought about it, Padma had only started speaking to him after running into him snogging Terry, not even a month later after the ball, in an abandoned classroom. She'd been very warm to him after that, and Blaise felt like an idiot for not realising sooner.

She was certain that he was gay. Right. Of course. He and Padma had only kissed a little, nothing more, and he'd not exactly jumped at the hints she'd been dropping before the Yule Ball when she'd been clearly interested in him.

"Sure," Blaise hedged. Why not?

"Don't play coy. I saw you eating Terry's face in fourth year."

Blaise wouldn't describe his technique as eating, but he was afraid that anything he said would result in Padma realising he was bisexual. He didn't think her ego could quite take it.

"Right," he said blandly.

"You've heard the rumours," Padma stated.

The rumours had been amusing before, but now that he was talking to people who paid them credence, Blaise was starting to feel that they'd lived long past their hype.

"I have. He's with Weasley, so they're all nonsense."

"Come on, Blaise," she said. "Every rumour has a kernel of truth at its heart."

"Is that some Ravenclaw Tower riddle answer?"

Padma ignored him. "Well, regardless of the veracity of the rumours, it hasn't stopped Harry from staring over here whilst we've been talking. He must find you fascinating, Blaise," Padma murmured.

Blaise fought the urge to turn in his seat with everything in him. "I doubt it."

Padma suddenly bent to her left, rifling through her bag, leaving the classroom beyond her visible to Blaise. She'd been right, and Blaise, unable to think of anything else but the possibilities Padma was weaving, nodded at Harry when they made eye contact. He didn't think Harry was staring out of attraction, but it did please Blaise in a way, to know that he was curious as to what they were talking about. The faint niggling of hope that Padma had fostered within him was addictive.

Sliding back into her seat with a dramatic flick of her hair after replacing her brown scrunchie with a blue one, Padma picked up her wand and began cycling through hair colours. "Denial is most unbecoming."

Eyeing the vomit green of her hair, Blaise turned his own a cool beige. "What's unbecoming is the continued flapping of your mouth. Please fix it."

Padma giggled. She flicked her wand once more, leaving her hair a bright fuchsia. "I've missed you, honestly. No one quite throws a strop like you. All snarky and long-suffering."

Blaise snorted. "I can think of plenty of people, but whatever happened to me being an arsehole?"

"Come back to the quartet," she said in a rush, disregarding the reminder of her favourite way to refer to him in fourth year. "Since you've left, Flitwick has decided we're going to play every single Baroque arrangement of Follia, and you know Sue gets all the first violin parts."

In face of his continued blank expression, her face hardened. "Corelli, Vivaldi, Albicastro, Guignon, Scarlatti – "

Blaise hummed blandly. "I get it."

That did sound quite terrible. It also explained why the password hadn't changed; honestly, he'd been operating under a leap of faith when he'd hosted their meeting there. Harry made him believe blindly, in all too many ways.

"Please," she begged.

Laughing lowly at the desperation in Padma's dark eyes, he shook his head in disbelief. "You want me to come back to that?"

"I don't want to suffer alone," she said with a huff. "Sue loves Baroque, and Susan is too nice to say anything without you complaining on behalf of the rest of us."

"What's stopping you?"

Padma tutted. "He's my head of House."

Blaise wasn't sure where that came into it, but he just nodded. Flitwick needed a firm hand to be reminded that there were types of chamber music that weren't Baroque.

"I'll consider it on one condition," Blaise said.

Padma nodded.

"Harry is planning on reviving – "

"The DA?"

The Slytherin Common Room had been in hysterics for more than an hour when Draco had come back with that piece of parchment. "Dumbledore's Army". It was such a stupid, Gryffindor thing to do. Had they not considered the culpability of the headmaster if they got discovered? They probably had, and it had likely spurred them on. Who was even under the impression that Dumbledore needed an army anyway?

"Yes. That," Blaise said.

"About time," Padma said with a haughty sniff. "I've needed somewhere to practice my Defence spells. Let Harry know that I'll be there, whenever and wherever."

Blaise hadn't expected it to be that easy. He'd underestimated the appeal of Harry teaching. Whilst he and his friends supported Harry, they'd never left any hint of actually participating in this club of his. Blaise was painfully curious to see what had Padma, proud as she was, so quick to join up with Harry again. Harry had said he could cast a corporeal Patronus. He must be good, Blaise realised.

"That's all you need?" Padma asked.

"Mhm."

"I'm sure whatever private conversation you're having can wait for later, Ms Patil and Mr Zabini," McGonagall said, approaching their row once more. "The lesson is almost over, regardless."

"Right."

"Of course, Professor."

With a severe nod at the two of them, she returned to the front of the class, beckoning silence with presence alone. Looking around at the technicolour mess her students were, Blaise fancied he could see the faintest quirk to McGonagall's lips.

"Excellent work," McGonagall called. "You'll be pleased to hear that in light of your performance, I will not be setting any assignments."

Only McGonagall's reputation prevented an outpouring of cheers. Blaise was sure he'd have joined them. It had been the longest week of his life. The last thing he needed was more homework.

"Really?" Blaise heard Hermione mutter.

She sounded disappointed. Tracey should have included not being so eager as a condition for joining their study group. It was unbelievable that someone like Hermione actually existed.

"Shh!" was the response from half the class.

"Yes, Ms Granger," McGonagall said with a distinct amusement. "Really. If any of you are feeling particularly keen, we will be studying the transfiguration of textures next week – for example, skin to fur, and nail to claw. I'd recommend reviewing anatomy texts to avoid any… accidents. Visualisation is key."

McGonagall cleared her throat importantly. "This is some of the…"

"Most dangerous magic we will ever encounter at Hogwarts," the class recited dully.

"Precisely," McGonagall said. Nodding once more at them, she took her seat at her desk. "Dismissed."

The class packed up in silence as was tradition in McGonagall's class. As soon as she exited the classroom for her office, conversation began.

Padma nudged him. "Oh, and Blaise, I'll see you on Tuesday at seven in the practice room. Flitwick will be expecting you."

With a brilliant smile, Padma rushed off. Blaise watched her go with an eye roll, already knowing he'd go. The things he did for Harry.

Not bothering to wait for Daphne and Tracey, he rushed out. As if her words had been prophetic, Blaise could feel Harry's eyes on him as he left. He intended to hide in the Kitchens until Flitwick's detention. Quiet was what he needed.

* * *

"We keep meeting like this," Tracey said.

"We do, Tracey," Harry said.

Daphne nudged Blaise. "Let's get this over with."

Blaise, closest to the door, knocked.

"Come in!" came Flitwick's muffled squeak.

They took the six desks that Flitwick had prepared for them, leaving them gathered around his desk in a semicircle.

"Now," Flitwick said with a smile. He clapped his hands together. "I can spend this hour detention lecturing you about wand safety and appropriate spell work in a school, but I imagine you have other priorities."

"We need to bridge the gap," Ron said immediately.

Blaise was a little surprised at Ron's forthrightness, but he conceded that a friend of Harry's was a close friend with conviction.

"Specialise!" Flitwick exclaimed. "Find your niche."

Hermione lifted her hand up, provoking Blaise into rolling his eyes. It was a detention, not class. "But, Professor," Hermione said. "Wizards of Dumbledore and Voldemort's calibre have always been accomplished generalists."

Blaise watched Harry nod with approval at Hermione, and he wondered just what exactly calling the Dark Lord by his name accomplished. Bravado for the sake of bravado? Blaise wasn't unaware that his House's tendency to refer to him as the Dark Lord wasn't much better. It was practically slavish.

"True," Flitwick said. He gave Hermione a gentle smile, though his tone had a slight dryness to it that Blaise was sure only he'd noticed. "If you know a way to become, as you say, an accomplished generalist, Ms Granger, by all means. I have no doubt you could do it but not quickly enough."

"We need immediate results," Ron said firmly.

Flitwick frowned. "Not necessarily immediate, Mr Weasley, but..." Flitwick shook his head. "Immediate would be for the best."

"As a duellist, I had the opportunity to meet wizards from different schooling traditions with different conceptualisations of magic. Don't limit yourself to what is taught at Hogwarts. There is an entire world of magic out there."

"Could you tell us what you think we'd be suited to?" Daphne asked.

Flitwick nodded exuberantly, seeming delighted that they wanted his advice. Blaise fought the urge to smile at him. There was no other teacher at Hogwarts who quite had Flitwick's passion for teaching.

"I'll preface my suggestions with the following: Your style must be your own. It must be something you enjoy. Wand work is not the be-all and end-all of being an effective combatant. At the heart of any skilled wizard, no matter what discipline, is hours and hours of study and research. It is imperative you know how your spells can be used, both against an opponent and against yourself. There is a counter to everything."

"The Killing Curse?" Tracey asked.

Flitwick shook his head dismissively. "Crude. Maintain distance and conjure a physical barrier. As you can guess, Transfiguration has the most potential of most fields of magic when it comes to combat," Flitwick said.

He smiled. It was a strange smile, conflicted with a sort of bittersweet excitement. "I remember during You-Know-Who's first reign of terror, Minerva transfigured and animated a marvellous stone golem from the rubble of a building. Held off four Death Eaters with just her wand and a magical construct."

"Are they still alive?" Tracey asked.

"One of them was squished," Flitwick murmured grimly. "I can't say I lost sleep over them." Blaise considered the fact that McGonagall had killed a Death Eater and found his opinion of her remained the same. She was as strict, severe and anti-Slytherin as usual. Daphne and Tracey seemed just as unfazed as him.

"She killed someone?" Hermione muttered, aghast.

"Professor McGonagall?" Ron and Harry said in disbelief. Ron looked a little green.

Thinking of McGonagall's precise and silent walk, a mirror of the cat she could become, Blaise could see her as a killer.

"Neither myself nor Minerva are bloodless," Flitwick explained. "That is the nature of war. Perhaps if I had Dumbledore's skill, I'd have considered seeking only to incapacitate but sometimes a more permanent solution is of greater utility."

Hermione's lips were pursed. "It's not right."

As Flitwick grimly nodded, Blaise squashed down the urge to just shout better them than us. Harry was as grim and repelled as Hermione, resulting in Blaise deciding he'd taken the right option. "No, it never is," Flitwick agreed.

"I quite like the idea of transfiguring a magical guardian," Tracey murmured.

Flitwick gave Tracey a nod. "It's a long and difficult road to achieve such a mastery of Transfiguration where you can create a guardian that can actually guard something. Unless you wish to spend half your time in a duel reconstructing your guardian, it's best to practice making as robust a construct as one can. For example, you can practice transfiguring or conjuring walls until said wall is able to withstand one full power Blasting Curse. Mind you, this is before you even consider the form your guardian will take."

Tracey nodded eagerly. "You'll think I was a mason in a couple of days."

Blaise shuddered with the grim knowledge of Tracey embarking on a mission to drive him and Daphne nuts.

Flitwick turned to Daphne who was watching Tracey with the same apprehension as Blaise. "Ms Greengrass, ash and dragon heartstring?"

Daphne's head snapped up. "How did you know that?"

"An educated guess," Flitwick said. "Ash burns readily, and dragon heartstring lends to powerful spells. A volatile combination, particularly when lent towards fire magic."

Flitwick gave her a beady eye. "If you wish to pursue elemental transfiguration, particularly fire, I suggest you take great care."

Daphne frowned, but she nodded seriously. Resolute. "I will."

"You believe in wand lore?" Hermione asked, a little confused.

Blaise was more along the lines of Hermione's thinking. Wand lore had always seemed like an eccentric roll of the die in his eyes. Random.

"It's not a matter of belief," Harry said in response to Hermione. "Right?"

Hermione nodded hastily, seeming to have remembered something. Harry exchanged a significant look with her as Blaise watched, eyebrow aloft, feeling like he was witnessing a conversation concerning something quite important.

"Exactly, Mr Potter. Perhaps you'd have a greater appreciation of it, Ms Granger, if you'd been at Hogwarts several decades ago. Long before I'd even finished my own studies. Basic wand lore used to be a part of the Theory of Magic classes given as a part of first year Charms," Flitwick explained. "The School Board had it removed, unfortunately. You can learn a lot about a wizard by the wood of their wand and its core, and I suppose quite rightfully, they feared that character judgments would be made about new students far too soon."

"You can identify wands by sight?" Ron asked.

"The woods, yes. Any duellist worth their salt can. The cores? Aside from a guess based on the power and types of spells most readily used, I'd have to physically touch the wand." He smiled at the mix of awe and shocked expressions. Blaise had always seen wand lore as a bizarre form of mysticism, so it was hard to associate practical and rigorous Flitwick with it. "It only takes a little practice to recognise the differences between the three most common cores."

"In fact, Mr Zabini is a perfect example of the importance of wand lore in duelling." They all turned as one to look at him, and Flitwick bounced on his feet, delighted at the surge of interest from his classmates. "Tell us why!"

Blaise rolled his eyes. "My wand is made of pine and phoenix feather," he said. "It's a unique combination as pine is incredibly flexible towards unorthodox spell work, so I can get away with poor diction and wand movements if my intent is strong enough, and phoenix feather is famous for its partial sentience."

It was an abridged version of the private lecture Flitwick had given him after discovering he'd been omitting the swish and flick to use the Levitation Charm in first year.

"Phoenix feather is quite rare," Daphne said quietly. "In fact, Ollivander rarely works with phoenix feather."

The Gryffindors were staring at him, seeming to find some significance in the core of his wand.

"It's my father's wand," Blaise said in a vain attempt to clarify whatever judgments they were making. "My mother told me he had it made in the Magical Quarter in Cairo."

This was something he'd never shared with anyone, so he'd been expecting the shock on Tracey's face, less so Daphne's. What he hadn't expected was the little jab of guilt in response. He should have shared something so core to his identity with his friends.

Whatever the Gryffindors had been thinking, it seemed to disappear with that confession.

Flitwick nodded hastily. "Wand inheritance is very common with such strange combinations. May I ask you to remind me what Ollivander matched you with?"

Reminded uncomfortably of the fact of the second wand he'd been carrying as a precaution after Harry's stories about Draco, he reached into his jacket. Retrieving the pale cream coloured wand, he ignored its bizarrely joyous pulse as it touched his fingers. It'd never done that before. Blaise placed it on the table beside his pine one. There was a striking contrast between the vibrant reddish-brown of his father's wand and the muted shade of his own, almost allegory for his father's larger-than-life character and his own comparatively diminished one. It was a bitter sort of irony that pine was said to be destined for those of long life, yet his father hadn't even made thirty before passing to Dragon Pox.

He breathed deep.

"Even if you take up this wand, you are still your father's son."

Thinking of his mother's words, words he hadn't listened to at the time, Blaise gestured to the wand he'd never accepted. "Beech with unicorn hair."

"Beech, the wood of those rich in understanding and experience. A powerful match for a tolerant mind," Flitwick said, an echo of an old man standing uncomfortably close and peering deep into Blaise's eyes, despite his mother's consternation. Blaise felt unbearably judged underneath Flitwick's gentle eyes.

"A pity," Flitwick said into the heavy silence.

It wasn't that he disliked the wand, but he'd been attached to the pine one since he'd been six. The warmth of its magic was a constant reminder of his father – of happier times. For a moment, he dipped his head with a bittersweet smile, remembering many summer afternoons being chased by his father's Animagus form, an Iberian lynx.

"A pity," he agreed, mind far away from the classroom they were stood in.

"You have a bit of a duality there, Mr Zabini," Flitwick said. He pointed to each wand in turn. "Both flexibility in spellwork and in mindset."

"Now I understand why wand lore was removed," Blaise said with a joking tone he didn't really feel.

No one laughed, and Flitwick's expression became even more sympathetic. "As you know, your primary wand is well suited for spell modification. Minerva has complained about your haphazard methods in Transfiguration for years. Charms will be of import to you – they are the most malleable forms of magic."

It wasn't anything he didn't know, so he just nodded.

The rest of the conversation was a bit of a blur to Blaise. Hermione being encouraged to pursue her desire to know everything, Ron being told about the importance of tactics in duelling and praise of his aptitude in Defence, and Harry was the recipient to a long deluge about ethics and morality. Flitwick, like Blaise and his friends, seemed to think that Harry needed a little nudge in the other direction. True to form, Harry had somehow sidestepped the topic. They'd somehow ended up with Hermione asking if Harry could receive private lessons. Blaise didn't disagree with the idea, but it did seem a little demanding. "I cannot be seen to be playing favourites," Flitwick said with a firm expression. "The Headmaster should be training Mr Potter. Minerva, Snape and myself pushed for some form of extra tutelage when his name emerged from the Goblet of Fire, but we were refused."

"Snape?!" was the resounding cry throughout the room.

"He hates you," Blaise said with in the silence afterwards, "but I don't think he wants you to die."

"Yet," Tracey added.

"That makes it better then," Ron snarked back.

"That's a load off my shoulders, Blaise," Harry dryly said.

"You're welcome, Harry," Blaise said back, just as dry and even more monotone.

Daphne cleared her throat loudly. "Regardless of playing favourites or not, it is imperative that if Harry is the so-called Chosen One that he is readied to fight. I don't see the Headmaster leaving the school to fight the Dark Lord, so I'm not exactly sure what his excuse is."

Flitwick chuckled. "Things aren't as simple as that, Ms Greengrass."

"They never are," she said, agreeing amiably, "but regardless of the complexity of the situation, excuses are excuses."

Flitwick's friendly expression faded.

"Don't be rude," Hermione hissed.

"I agree with Daphne," Ron hedged.

At Hermione's venomous look, Ron lifted his hands up in surrender. "She has a point."

"Regardless of whether she's correct or not, she's being rude."

Blaise thought it was quite rich for Hermione to be calling anyone rude, but instead of voicing that opinion, he sunk into the back of his chair with an exhale, closed his eyes, and settled in for a long series of bickering. If Flitwick was mad with Daphne's attitude, he'd have said something. It was just another excuse for him to try and understand their group dynamics.

"Enough," Harry said.

And just like that, it was silent. Blaise peeked out of one eye at Harry, catching Flitwick's wink at him in the periphery of his vision. Harry was staring at Flitwick.

"You haven't said anything about not helping, Professor," Harry said.

"Indeed," Flitwick confirmed.

"You just don't want to be seen playing favourites," Tracey added.

"Mhm," Flitwick said with a little nod.

"So, you're going to help?" Ron asked.

Flitwick sighed. "Detention next week. Same time. Yes?"

They all nodded. Hermione looked conflicted about the idea of another detention, even if it were purely a masquerade for this bizarre conspiracy they were in. Funny girl.

"You'll have to forgive them for being slow," Blaise drawled.

"I will, won't I?" Flitwick said in good humour. "No matter. I trust we'll have them up to par soon enough, Mr Zabini."

Blaise thought that Flitwick ought to have replaced soon enough with an unforeseeable time in the future. He smiled without humour. "Soon, yes."

"We'll discuss duelling and your focuses then. Come prepared – I expect you to have mastery of the following spells: Protego, Expelliarmus, Impedimenta, Confringo, Accio, Expulso, Petrificus Totalus, Stupefy, Enervate, and Episkey. Pursue a couple of extra spells if you have time. Anything you fancy."

Basic spells. Blaise was a little offended by how low Flitwick's expectations of them were. With regards to extra spells, he'd have to raid the library with the fact that his mother couldn't exactly send an incredibly rare Charms book by owl to be molested by Filch and incompetent Aurors.

"Can I make an addition, Professor?" Harry asked.

Flitwick nodded. "By all means!"

"The Patronus Charm. In times like these, it's more vital than ever."

Blaise cringed. It was one of the few charms he'd tried and had little to no success with. Bringing forward emotion on demand wasn't something he was particularly good at.

"I agree, Mr Potter," Flitwick squeaked. His moustache quivered a little. "Dark times indeed."

"No problem for me," Tracey said with a leisurely stretch. "Auntie taught me over the summer."

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

Tracey smiled toothily. "Hyena."

Blaise and Ron snorted violently. "Fitting," Blaise said.

"What's your Patronus? Oh, wait."

Daphne coughed pointedly. "And for those of us who cannot create a corporeal Patronus?"

"Harry can teach you. He taught us," Ron said surprisingly gently.

Blaise gave Harry an evaluating look-over, seeking confirmation.

"It's true," Harry said. "This weekend?"

Blaise shook his head with a suddenness that made him nauseous. "It's been a long week," Blaise said as apologetic as he could. "If you don't mind, I'd like to leave this room and not think about anyone in it for the next forty-eight hours."

Hermione smiled back at him, sympathetic.

Harry nodded his agreement, though Blaise would swear that his smile was a little displeased. Regardless of Harry's feelings, Blaise expected to have a nice peaceful weekend with no uncomfortable epiphanies, no life and death experiences, and most importantly, no Harry. Blaise realised that through Harry's influence, he'd changed, for the better, but he desperately needed to re-establish some sense of equilibrium. Emotionally, he felt like he was in a state of extreme flux. Distance would be nice.

"Wiser words have never been spoken," Ron snarked back.

"Not even us?" Daphne joked.

"I suppose I can make room for at least the two of you," Blaise said.

"Joy," she deadpanned.

"And I'll see you all on Monday afternoon. Also, Tuesday for you, Mr Zabini," Flitwick said. The diminutive Professor hopped off of his stack of books and flicked his wand, sending all the desks to the side of the room. They began to stack themselves seamlessly. "I hope you're looking forward to some Follia by Marais!"

"About that, Professor – "

"Have a good weekend, Blaise," Harry called from the doorway.

"Yeah. I'll try," he said with a broad smirk. He nodded at Harry's friends. "Same to you three."

Seeming a little surprised by his inclusion, Ron and Hermione offered their own goodbyes before they too passed through the doorway with their friend, hand in hand.

"What were you saying, Mr Zabini?"

"Less Baroque. Please," Blaise begged.

"We'll see you in the common room, Blaise," Tracey said with a laugh, Daphne waving at her side with a little nod.

Waving at them, he took in Flitwick's contemplative expression with growing dread.

It took half an hour of negotiation, but Blaise left Flitwick's office with a promise he'd draft a list of repertoire that would be appropriate. He'd requested twelve pieces which had filled Blaise with a sort of muted horror as to how many Baroque chamber works Flitwick had had planned for the quartet to do. Still, spending his weekend studying for the coming exams, a quiet Potions session with Slughorn, and Romance era string quartets wasn't too bad. It could be worse. He could run into Harry and end up falling off another staircase.


	9. your every touch reaches my soul

Rating: M

Summary: Soulmate AU smut one shot

* * *

"Boy! We're not running a spa in here. Hurry up!"

Harry fumbled with the shower controls with a curse before switching off the water. Stepping out of the shower with a sigh, he took in his reflection with a grim expression. The tattoo was as pristine as ever, unmoved and unmarred. Harry was now certain it wasn't ink. No, the jolt of sensation when he touched it screamed magic to Harry. But what type of magic?

As he dried himself, he considered sending an owl to Dumbledore or Hermione, but just the thought was enough to send an all-encompassing sense of wrongness through him. It was enough to send him to his knees. On his knees in front of the mirror, the tattoo on his right thigh was entirely visible, yet the sight seemed to reinvigorate him rather than anger him, erasing the wrong feeling almost instantaneously. The name, Blaise Zabini, taunted him anew with its vague familiarity. Harry was certain that they were a wizard and someone he'd seen before. It was an unnatural certainty that felt, in some ways, like that previous sense of wrongness.

It had only appeared this morning and now Harry seemed to be stuck with it, and for some reason, Harry didn't feel the concern that he should have been feeling. Oddly enough, as he walked out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, he had the feeling that everything would work out soon enough.

* * *

Soon enough turned out to be the train journey to Hogwarts. Everything seemed to come together when he stepped into Slughorn's compartment. There was a tall black boy sat at the table, dressed in a plain white shirt that hugged his body, showcasing his broad shoulders and toned arms. When Harry's eyes met his dark, slanted ones, the mark on his thigh seemed to burst into life from the dull thrumming pulse it'd adopted since he'd stepped foot on the station. It became thunderous, filling Harry with an alien joy and desire that he could not reconcile as his own. At that thought, the feeling intensified, making it hard to breathe. Harry didn't know how he managed to get to his seat, but he must have done it independently and without any strange behaviour as no one had commented.

Introductions came and went, they shared a meal, and Slughorn brown-nosed and bragged. It all meant nothing to Harry, nothing compared to the source of obsession sitting across him. He still couldn't look away, and neither could the boy he now knew to be Blaise.

He was beautiful, yet Harry was sure that even if he looked like Aragog or Grawp he'd find him to be one of the most beautiful beings in existence. His mark pulsed insistently as if it was an immutable truth.

They had to speak. Harry felt like the world would end at any moment if they weren't able to speak privately.

"Hermione, I'll meet you back in our compartment. I need to use the loo," Harry said, perhaps a little more loudly than necessary.

He dared a look at the black boy sat across from him. There was no visible reaction from him, but as Harry began to feel a surprisingly heart wrenching sense of disappointment, he nodded just the slightest bit.

The wait felt like a lifetime, but the door slid open eventually. It was with profound relief that Harry saw that it was Blaise. He let the tall, black Slytherin into the tight space in a hurry that he didn't quite understand. Before he could even speak, before the door had completely shut, Blaise was upon him.

The last kiss Harry received had been like kissing a wet towel, in all honesty (weepy Cho hadn't been sensual in the slightest), but Blaise kissed him with a surety and a desperation that shocked Harry. The feel of his full lips against Harry's, tongue following in not a moment later, had Harry returning it with his own desperation. As they pressed closer and closer, the mark on Harry's thigh throbbed more and more until the only things Harry's senses were attuned to were its unceasing pulse and Blaise.

It felt like both an eternity and an instant had passed when they separated.

"I just knew I needed to speak to you," Harry said, saying the first thing on his mind.

"Just speak?" Blaise said, eyebrows aloft.

The Slytherin shook his head in disbelief before taking off his shirt. On the mocha of his skin, from the left side of his hip to his navel, was Harry's name. Transfixed, Harry reached out to touch. Blaise moved closer, took Harry's hand in his own, and pressed it against the warmth of his skin. Harry didn't think he'd ever be able to let go. The sense of rightness almost made him feel dizzy.

Blaise hissed. "Do you know what this means?"

Harry just followed his name with his eyes and his fingers. His traitorous mind was fixated on the idea of licking along his name and the Slytherin's toned abdomen with his tongue. Eyeing the hefty bulge in the Slytherin's jeans, Harry didn't know if he'd even be able to stop there.

"Soulmates," Blaise said, breathing heavily. "Very rare."

Just the mere mention of the word made Harry kneel and smooch the mark that bound him to Harry. It was like pressing his lips against a lightning rod. He could feel the pulse of heady magic from it like a second heartbeat in Blaise's silken skin.

Blaise cried out, almost sounding like he was in pain, but he cupped Harry's head hard against him. "Fuck," he whimpered. "Do that again."

Harry didn't know how long he was down there just making love with his mouth against that brand of addictive magic, but his hands had made at least a dozen circuits around Blaise's hips and waist, and Blaise's voice was on the verge of fraying.

Harry parted from the heat of Blaise's body with a long lick. He stared up into Blaise's wide eyes, deciding that thunderstruck Blaise was one that he liked seeing. "Tell me more about our bond."

Blaise audibly gulped at him as Harry rose to his feet, licking his lips. Harry was certain he could taste the magic.

"They're not always romantic, or even sexual, but you can gather the nature of ours. Every time you touch me, I think I'm going to..."

"Burn?"

Blaise nodded with a shudder that wracked his entire body. "It just feels so right."

"Too right," Harry mumbled.

It made sense. The unnatural fixation he had for the Slytherin had been all-consuming since he'd seen him on the station. The magic in the bond made looking at the Slytherin, touching the Slytherin, and being in the same room as the Slytherin feel rapturous. The little part of Harry still capable of independent thought realised that this meant he'd never be alone again. How could he be alone when he had a soulmate?

That balm of a thought was quickly overridden by the sight of Blaise taking off the rest of his clothes. Harry watched in silence, pinned in place by Blaise's hooded eyes. Apart from his shoulders, Blaise was lean with a good level of tone to his body, visible abs and well-developed pectorals, that Harry hadn't seen since Oliver Wood had been at Hogwarts. His muscles were made prominent by the fact that he was almost entirely hairless bar the smattering of pubic hair around his cock.

"You're beautiful," Harry said.

Blaise smiled at him. "As are you. Show me," he said huskily.

As Harry began to undress himself, unbuttoning his shirt, Blaise tried to aid him with one impatient hand before pulling out his wand and vanishing them, leaving him naked, with an impatient jab. His Invisibility Cloak and wand fell to the floor without a sound.

"I'll buy you new ones. I swear," he muttered before grabbing Harry's firm arse. "Better than those ill-fitting clothes."

Harry couldn't find the urge to care about the loss of one of the few outfits he liked or Blaise's offhand comment. Not with Blaise's lips once again on his own and his cock rubbing against his own.

"You're beautiful," Blaise murmured back at him between feverish kisses.

Between the soulbond induced haze and Blaise's fervour, Harry managed to wrap his hand around both his and Blaise's length.

Harry quite liked the contrast between them: the rose and angry red of his erection, and the umber and plum of Blaise. It was an attractive sight between his fingers whenever Harry managed to pull his eyes away from his name adorning the left side of Blaise's hip to his navel. There was a feeling of rightness, like everything was right in the world, a true sense of timelessness, evoked by the exposed mark of belonging on his thigh and on Blaise's abdomen. The feeling seemed to be trapped behind the moans bubbling in his throat, in the violent beating of his heart, and the constant pulse of his right thigh.

"Sit on the toilet," Harry ordered.

Blaise did as ordered and Harry crawled between his legs, eyeing the throbbing cock before him. It was darker than the brown of Blaise's body, almost black, with a pink-purple head. He seemed by sight to be bigger than Harry, perhaps an inch or two longer and a shade thicker.

Harry had never done this before, but he knew he wanted to do it. With the bond, it felt like that was all that was necessary, that was all that mattered. Desire.

Blaise groaned deeply as Harry's lips wrapped around his plum-coloured glans. As Harry's tongue spiralled around his cock, Blaise bucked underneath him. When Harry rested a hand on Blaise's mark and suckled on his shaft, he trembled violently with a moan before falling back into the porcelain.

"Don't stop," Blaise murmured.

Harry didn't really know what he was doing, but whatever he was doing was working well enough. Blaise's soft moans and groans were more than enough to make Harry ignore his throbbing cock.

Alternating between gentle lashes of his tongue, suction whenever he took Blaise's cock in, a hand manipulating the mark on his abdomen, and his hand working along the half of Blaise's cock he couldn't yet handle, Harry managed to work Blaise towards orgasm in what felt like little time at all.

It didn't taste particularly nice, Blaise's seed, but Harry thought he could come to enjoy it. Harry pulled Blaise down by the chin and kissed him. He didn't even react at finding that Harry hadn't swallowed, simply kissing him more firmly. Eventually, following a long swap of the large wad of cum, Harry swallowed it.

Blaise slid down to the floor beside him, staring at him with an awed expression.

"Let me return the favour," Blaise said.

Harry took his place on toilet, and when Blaise buried his nose in Harry's pubic hair seconds later, Harry thought he might just be the luckiest boy in Hogwarts.

* * *

"Harder," Harry demanded.

Blaise smirked down at him, and the grip around his calves pushed down, moving his knees down to his shoulders. At this angle, the sight of the black cock between his pale cheeks and inside his hole was especially distinct.

Harry watched as Blaise sunk into the hilt once more with a firm clap of flesh. The full sensation when Blaise was in to the point his balls pressed against Harry always made Harry feel a little impaled. The feeling was especially intense in this position, but he'd learned to like the line between pain and pleasure that they flirted with when they played rough.

Blaise pulled out to the head, unbearably slowly, then slammed back in with a sudden thrust of his hips. Harry stifled his answering yelp, sounding more like a dying frog if anything.

Blaise's lips twitched violently, and he gained force. The loud clap of Blaise's hips beating a tattoo against Harry's arse resounded throughout the room, almost drowning out Blaise's low moans and Harry's whimpers.

"Too much for you?" Blaise panted between loud smacks of his hips against Harry.

"Don't be ridiculous," Harry wheezed, holding onto Blaise's shoulders for dear life. "You're being..."

He gurgled stupidly as Blaise altered his angle to begin jabbing at his prostate. His own cock dripped like a leaky faucet on his stomach.

"I'm being what? The best fuck you'll ever have?"

Any response Harry could offer was masked by Blaise's hungry lips, and Harry moved one hand down to his cock to stroke himself before he possibly died.

Blaise came inside him with a low cry of his name. He continued to thrust inside Harry as he emptied himself. Harry came a second later, clenching erratically around Blaise's slowly flagging erection.

"Hard enough?" Blaise asked when Harry had been driven adequately insensate.

"Acceptable," Harry croaked.

Blaise hummed before smiling happily at him. "I'll just have to try harder next time," he said with a laugh before pulling out.

With Blaise no longer inside him, he felt like he'd been hollowed out. The sensation of Blaise's cum slowly oozing out of him was one he was familiar with at this point, and he ignored it. Instead, he focused on the powerful burning of his arse. "Perhaps not that hard next time."

Blaise pulled him forward into his lap, embracing him tightly. "Are you in pain?"

"I'll live," Harry said. "If you could hold me up a little, it'll be better."

Harry didn't mention that he had little control of his legs at the moment. Blaise wasn't the type to brag, but he did always acquire a silent air of satisfaction when this happened that always drove Harry up the wall. It was so infuriatingly smug.

Blaise nodded seriously, and his hands pulled Harry completely into his lap, leaving their legs intertwined and stomach to stomach. Then he lifted Harry by the arse, reducing the amount of pressure considerably.

"Like this?"

"Yeah," Harry said with a sigh ridden with palpable relief.

"Good," Blaise murmured. He smoothed Harry's brows with a gentle press of the thumb on his free hand. "I hate to see you in pain, Harry."

Harry had always thought it was inevitable that he'd fall in love with Blaise. The bond itself only made that a guarantee with the mutual addiction it fostered between them, but he frequently said things that made the part of Harry not under the sway of the bond consider that maybe in another lifetime, this could have happened without magical interference. The thought warmed him immeasurably.

"I'm happy you're here with me, Blaise," he said.

Blaise nodded at him. "As am I."

It was these moments that Harry truly lived for: the press of skin and mark against each other, and the steadiness of Blaise's heartbeat against his own. The sex was good, but the slow, quiet moments were better.

Harry decided he was quite liking sixth year. Draco and Voldemort aside, Quidditch was great, classes were going well (transfiguration especially - with all the beds he and Blaise were conjuring and transfiguring, they were near top of the class), Hermione and Ron were too busy bickering with each other to irritate him, and Blaise just served as a wonderful bonus.

They didn't always fuck, though when they did, it almost always involved Blaise on top. Whilst Harry would've liked more opportunities to fuck Blaise, the rarity of it made the act itself all the sweeter. Everytime, he made it his mission to make Blaise beg. Not always successfully, but more than enough to make him not kick up a fuss. It helped that Blaise always found his prostate with an uncanny accuracy. He was in good hands.

Sometimes they just sat together and cuddled, exploiting the tactile nature of their bond. Others, they talked - he learned of Blaise's family, his friends, and his fears. Harry had found it altogether too telling, and quite sad really, that Blaise had not asked Harry if he had any dreams after asking about his fears. It made him wish that the Mirror of Erised was still around.

It was with dreams in mind that Harry finally ventured one of his own, one he'd buried deeply for at least a month. "Come to Hogsmeade with me," Harry said.

Blaise laughed at him, though Harry knew him well enough at this point to recognise the happiness in his dark eyes. "Asking me out, Harry?"

Wiggling his arse in Blaise's lap resulted in Blaise's soft cock twitching underneath him. Harry just enjoyed the sight of Blaise's lips parting at the sensation.

"We've been shagging all over the school for the last two months? Why not?"

He moved one of Blaise's hands, that had been idle on his hips, to his thigh. He groaned low in his throat at the familiar jolt. "And we're soulmates."

"That we are," Blaise murmured.

He brought Harry forward, forehead to forehead. The hand on his thigh grasped him firmly and the other settled on his hip. Like completing a jigsaw puzzle, Harry's hands found their way to Blaise's complimentary mark and to his cheek. Harry watched with a soft smile as Blaise's eyes fluttered a little at the feel of Harry stroking around his mark.

"So, will you come to Hogsmeade with me?"

"I'm in Slytherin," Blaise said as if Harry had yet to notice.

"And there I was thinking that the green and silver represented Hufflepuff," Harry drawled. He stroked a finger along his name beside Blaise's navel, smirking triumphantly at his ensuing sigh. "Go out with me?"

Blaise sighed but his smile was still present. Harry wasn't nervous, as he knew deep down that Blaise wanted it just as much as he did. Their connection was one that made it easy to gauge the other's mood.

"It won't reflect well on you," Blaise admitted. He met Harry for a toe-curling kiss. As they parted, equally breathless, Blaise gave Harry's thigh a cloying squeeze. "Gay and dating a Slytherin?"

Still feeling the pleasant heat that came with his tattoo being manipulated, Harry had to shake his head to escape the all-consuming nature of the sensation. "You think that you're not worth a proper relationship?"

Blaise scoffed. "It's not a matter of worth. It's a matter of easing the pressure on you."

"I can deal with the pressure, Blaise," Harry said.

"Really?"

"It'd be worth it to be able to touch you in public."

"Just touch me?" Blaise whispered.

Harry blushed. "I'd like to be able to stand beside you, you know? I'd be proud to have you as my boyfriend."

Blaise was silent, and Harry rushed to fill the silence. "That's if you want to that is."

"I hope you know that I love you, you idiot," Blaise said incredibly matter-of-factly.

Harry had long suspected it. After all, it was an inevitability, but it was another thing to hear it.

Harry stared dumbly. "You do?"

Blaise sighed. "Yes."

"Oh."

"Not the most promising response," Blaise drawled. Despite his seeming nonchalance, Harry was deeply disturbed by his immediate move to disentangle their legs.

Wrapping his legs tightly around Blaise's waist, Harry pressed his full weight onto him with a grunt. The pain was back, but it would have to be ignored.

"Don't move. Talk to me," Harry said.

Imprisoned between the rub of Harry's thigh against his left side and his weight, Blaise just stared at him coldly. "What else is there to say?"

"How do you know it's not just the bond?"

"The bond just magnifies sensation and emotion," Blaise explained as he had done multiple times before. "Perhaps it hurries along the progression of... whatever we are, but I know I love you."

"I don't think I could live without you," Harry admitted, wanting to offer at least something in return.

"Is that all?" Blaise asked with a challenging smirk on his face. He leaned forward, framing Harry's face in his hands. "You just can't live without me?"

Harry had to force himself to look at Blaise.

"I wake up and you're the first thing on my mind. When we're in Slug Club, Potions, Defence… anywhere together, I want to just talk to you like the friend that you are to me, but I can't. I think that hurts the most," Harry said. The taken aback expression on Blaise's face was more disconcerting than it was comforting. How could he not know how desperately Harry wanted to be around him? "When I play Quidditch, all I can think about when riding my broom is riding you. I'm obsessed."

"Love and obsession are far apart, Harry," Blaise said with a gentle kiss. "I care about you. So much. All I want is the best for you. Your continued safety, your happiness, and your success are more important to me than my own."

"It's the same for me, but I'm scared that what I'm feeling isn't authentic," Harry said.

"I know," Blaise said with a gracious nod. A sea of butterflies erupted in Harry's stomach at the sight of the smile on Blaise's face. It was a little fragile, almost timid. "Learn with me? Authenticity, that is."

"Learn with you," Harry repeated.

Blaise nodded with a little squirm beneath Harry.

"Well, there's no one else," Harry remarked with a broad grin. "I'd love to."

Blaise exhaled through his nose in a rush. "You won't regret this," he said with a conviction that Harry had never heard from him before.

"No," Harry remarked, watching the seriousness in Blaise's expression. "I don't think I will."

As Blaise pulled him deeper into his body heat, Harry acknowledged that his mark didn't react anymore. That haze of must-touch, must-admire and must-feel whenever he thought of Blaise had finally ebbed. It was still there, niggling in the back of his mind, but not with enough force to cloud his thinking. Had it only been there to act as an impetus for an emotional connection?

"Blaise, does your mark still give you sensation?"

Blaise gave him a weird look. "Only during sex."

"Mine has been reacting to my thoughts and emotions."

Blaise rolled his eyes.

"Probably because you're still fighting it," Blaise explained.

"You didn't?"

"Well, all I can say is that I hoped desperately," Blaise admitted. His seriousness broke for a moment as he gave Harry a salacious sneer. "It helped that I wanted you before the mark appeared anyway. You've always been sexy to me."

Harry was incredibly flattered, but he just couldn't quite picture Blaise as someone who hoped desperately. "Hope was enough?"

Blaise took his time to answer, and when he did, he spoke with such belief that Harry could only listen rivetted. "At the time no, but since then my hopes and dreams have been well rewarded. You're everything to me, and I'll show you this one day at a time."

Harry didn't quite know what to say to that, so he kissed Blaise instead.

* * *

When Blaise slid beside him on the Gryffindor table at breakfast the next day, all hell broke loose.

"What are you doing here?" Ron spat.

Blaise poured himself tea with a pleasant smile before giving Harry a peck on the cheek, and Ron dropped his cutlery on the floor, managing to spill a pitcher of pumpkin juice in the process. Harry took Blaise's free hand under the table, enjoying the violent blush on Ron's face far too much.

The low rumble of conversation around them seemed to die before exploding.

"This is my boyfriend," Harry announced loud enough that half of Gryffindor and their neighbours in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw could hear. Within five minutes, the entire school would know.

"Oh, I… I'm happy for you?" Ron offered to Harry.

"Congratulations," Neville murmured after returning to his eggs. "I hope you make each other happy."

"Thanks, Longbottom," Blaise said with a nod.

Neville gave him a tight smile in response.

Meanwhile, Hermione was beginning to master muscle control of her lips. They'd now simply slackened dramatically rather than flapped open and close like a fish. "This makes so much sense!"

"How?! Harry and a… a snake!" Ron exclaimed.

Blaise continued to chew at his toast with a content smile. Harry so badly wanted to kiss him, but he didn't think Ron's heart could take it.

Dean got out of his seat to pat Harry on the back, grinning at him for reasons unknown to Harry. "I'm happy for you, mate."

Seamus nodded, though he had an expression that was more akin to Ron's. Shell-shocked.

Malfoy, sat on the other side of the Great Hall, looked like he'd been forced to suck on a particularly bitter lemon. The two girls Blaise spoke of often, Tracey and Daphne, nodded at him when his gaze fell on them. The tanned brunette, who he was fairly sure was Tracey, drew her finger dramatically across her own throat before smirking. The blonde sat next to her just stared at Harry, and her cold eyes were infinitely more threatening than her friend's gesture. Maybe Harry would feel threatened if he had any remote intention of hurting Blaise.

"Mind speaking? Introduce yourself?" Hermione asked.

Blaise looked Harry up and down, biting his lip. "No, I'd rather admire Harry."

"Oh, yuck," Ron said with a nervous chuckle as if to make clear he didn't want to offend.

"Besides, you'll get to know me in the future. I don't exactly plan on going anywhere," Blaise added.

Harry didn't know whether it was Blaise being talkative, thanking Neville, smiling, or a combination of all of these, but Blaise's response seemed to break Hermione anew.

"This is who Harry has been sneaking off to see," Hermione said with the same mystified expression.

Yes, Harry thought that this breakfast would go down as one of his favourites. He leaned over to kiss Blaise's cheek, glorying in the delighted cant his smile adopted.

"Ah, well. At least I'd gotten over Harry," came Ginny's voice from behind Harry.

"Oh, Ginny. Are you alright?" Hermione asked, latching desperately onto Ginny with her eyes as if she were one of the few things in the room that made sense.

Ginny blushed a deep crimson before taking a seat next to Hermione. "If this had happened last month, I'd be absolutely gutted."

Blaise just hummed around a sip of tea. When he removed the mug from his mouth, there was a shit-eating grin on his face. "No hard feelings."

To Harry's eyes, Ginny appeared to rather angrily spear her sausages onto her plate in response to that. It seemed that Ginny wasn't as nonchalant as she'd like to be.

"Hard feelings then," Blaise remarked, coming to the same conclusion as Harry.

"Fuck off."

"Watch it, Ginny," Harry said to her.

She stared at Harry before looking away, dismissing him. Harry sighed before turning to Blaise.

"You know she's good with her wand," Harry whispered in Blaise's ear. He didn't think Ginny would be that vindictive, but it didn't hurt to be careful.

"I'd love to see her try. Besides, you'll get all authoritative and protective…"

Blaise's voice lowered to the point it felt like he was only breathing in his ear. Harry shivered imperceptibly.

"And?"

"I think your whole saving people thing is hot beyond belief. You can save me any day, Harry. I'm not much of a damsel, but I guess I could wear my hair long and let you… rescue me."

Harry gulped, torn between amusement and arousal, and he dived back to his bacon before he got hard. Blaise just peered at him around his tea with a seductive smirk, uncaring of the students watching them unceasingly.

* * *

They left breakfast early, wanting to avoid any unwanted attention (like the dramatically sobbing Romilda Vane that Blaise had pointed out to Harry). As they made for the Entrance Hall, eager to get to Hogsmeade before the crush of the crowd, Snape appeared before them as if out of thin air. As usual, clad in his black voluminous robes and his typical sneer in place.

"I have been informed that the two of you have been comporting yourselves in ways inappropriate for a school," Snape said.

Harry exchanged a bewildered look with Blaise. Did a peck on the cheek count as scandalous behaviour?

"No, we haven't," Blaise said. "I imagine Draco is just seeking to create a problem out of nothing. We've behaved satisfactorily."

Blaise sounded convincing to Harry, and he didn't dare say anything. As much as he wanted to interject, Harry had enough self-control to know that Blaise would come across far more sympathetically to Snape than Harry.

"There are no rules against your… fraternisation since Madam Umbridge quietly departed the school, but we do expect a level of decorum. With that decorum comes discretion."

Blaise became ramrod still beside him, and Harry forgot how to breathe.

Snape sneered at the two of them. "I daresay that Mr Potter may learn something of subtlety through association with you, Mr Zabini. At least, I hope so. It truly is something we all need to bear in mind."

Harry choked violently and immediately broke eye contact. Thinking of his obsessive though processes lately, he was mortified at the possibility of Snape, with his slimy, mind-invading, privacy-violating tendencies, having looked through his thoughts. Harry hoped he liked the sight of Blaise naked. There was a lot of that. Really, Harry thought at times that that was the only thing that went through his mind.

"I'll teach him everything I know, Professor," Blaise said grimly. His thigh rocked into Harry's over and over.

Harry barely restrained a chuckle, thinking of all the things Blaise had taught him. "I'm an eager student," he said sincerely.

Snape's jaw twitched with irritation. "We'll see. Good day," he said and swept away without another word.

Harry sighed with relief. That had gone far better than he'd expected, considering what he suspected Snape knew about the two of them. "Any idea why Snape was so happy?" he asked as soon as Snape was out of earshot.

Blaise's face seemed to contort through several bizarre shapes as they walked onto the grounds.

"No ideas?"

His boyfriend's lips thinned. "Do you want to know my opinion?"

Harry snorted. "Of course."

Blaise sighed.

"Don't tell me I didn't warn you," he muttered. "Snape is probably happy because the odds of you reproducing have declined dramatically."

"I can still have kids!" Harry choked. "Does this mean Snape approves?!"

Nostrils flared, and eyebrows drawn towards his hairline, Blaise stared at Harry. He looked beyond disgusted.

"If you think that I'm going to let you go and fuck Weasley, you are sadly mistaken," Blaise said with impressive coldness, "and I don't want to think about Snape anymore."

Harry wholeheartedly agreed.

"Who said anything about Ginny?" Harry asked. He grinned cheekily at Blaise's pinched expression. "No, I was more thinking Tracey. She's pretty enough, but if you'd prefer Ginny..."

Blaise laughed. "I'll let Tracey know she meets your lofty standards, but I think you've forgotten some rather obvious things."

"Hmm?" Harry asked.

"Your beloved Ginny will be with Thomas soon enough," Blaise said, smirking at the dawning comprehension on Harry's face. "Also, you have my name written on your body. I'm afraid that makes you mine alone."

"Pity," Harry said.

"Pity," Blaise repeated. He smirked broadly. "I'll remember that the next time I have my mouth on your cock."

Harry blushed violently, remembering the last time Blaise had worked his magic on him. He'd given Harry the most leisurely blowjob in perhaps the history of Hogwarts in an abandoned classroom. Just remembering was enough to threaten to make him hard.

"I can assure you that your blowjobs are far from a pity."

"They are?" Blaise asked, deadpan.

"Absolutely," Harry said, nodding quickly. "On the other hand, unless you're offering right now, I think it's best we stop bringing up your skills."

Blaise came to a sudden halt.

"What's wrong?"

Blaise rolled his eyes. "It's cold."

"So it is," Harry agreed.

"Harry."

"Blaise."

"Abandoned classroom?"

"Whatever happened to Hogsmeade and discretion?"

"I'd rather fuck you, to be honest," Blaise said with a shrug. "Hogsmeade will be Hogsmeade at the end of the day, but watching you take my dick up your arse never gets old. Snape? Well, we can always have sex under your Invisibility Cloak if you want. Throw in a Silencing Charm. It'd be fun."

Harry grimaced at the idea of the potential mess on his Cloak.

"And they say romance is dead," Harry muttered, though his heart was beginning to race at the slight smirk on Blaise's full lips.

"We're two teenage boys," Blaise said. "This is about as romantic as it's going to get." He took Harry's shoulders in hand before leaning in to kiss him.

Harry didn't think he had much of an appreciation for romance, but he supposed that a long snog on a scenic path in the Scottish Highlands could be considered romantic.

"I promise we'll do something romantic over the holidays, but as I said I'd rather just cuddle underneath a blanket than go to the Three Broomsticks, Honeydukes or Zonko's for the hundredth time."

"Going to stay in the castle for Christmas?"

Blaise nodded sombrely. "For you, of course."

Harry shrugged, attempting to look casual, but obviously failing by the softness of Blaise's eyes. Deep inside, he prayed that the Weasley didn't invite him for Christmas, but the odds of that were virtually nil. Looking at Blaise's easy smile at him, Harry resolved that he'd work something out.

It was a little disappointing that they couldn't enjoy Hogsmeade together, but he'd gotten what he'd really wanted out of this. Now the only time they needed to sneak around was when they were shagging.

"Can I go cuddle with my boyfriend now?" Blaise asked with that soft look that made Harry feel like mush.

"Whatever happened to the fucking?" He asked.

Blaise turned away from Hogsmeade, grinning at the battlements of Hogwarts standing tall in the sky. "Oh, that comes before. I thought that went without saying."

He did always like it when Blaise got... demanding.

"I love you, you know," Harry said.

Blaise grinned at him. "Of course. I hope you know that commits you into spending at least an hour with me in an abandoned classroom."

Harry grinned back, giddy and pleased beyond belief. "At least an hour? I expect to be impressed then."

"Nothing less than the best for you," Blaise said.

"Damsel?" Harry asked.

Blaise laughed. "I was hoping you'd forgotten about that," he said. "Tomorrow definitely."

Giving a quick look at the sight of Hogsmeade cresting over the hill, Harry easily turned away also. His sudden turn back towards Hogwarts even surprised Blaise, making him grunt at the sudden pull on his hand. Releasing Blaise's hand, he began to jog back to the castle. With a chuckle, Blaise caught up quickly and snatched Harry's hand back within his own. Plodding ungainly through the deep snow together, Harry drew his wand out to vanish the snow before they ended up falling.

"That requires far too concentration," Blaise purred. "Come on, Harry."

Harry almost dropped his wand when Blaise began to sprint. Feeling the whipping of the frigid winter wind as they raced to the castle, Harry laughed, carefree.


End file.
